


PSC Series: The Haunted Celebrity

by akinojou



Category: Alice Nine, SCREW (Band), ViViD (Band), the GazettE
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Gen, Horror, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-30
Updated: 2014-06-26
Packaged: 2017-12-30 23:30:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 53,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1024675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akinojou/pseuds/akinojou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"PSC, which stands for Paranormal Studies Center, is an institution whose main object is to investigate various paranormal and supernatural events. This is the Department of Investigation and Recovery, where all investigative tasks are being done. My name is Kai, and I am the head of this Department. Welcome. How may I help you?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was Saturday, a couple of minutes to eleven p.m. The office was officially closed at seven, and it was nearly completely deserted now save for Kai and a couple of his staff. Kai had wanted to stay behind to sort out the files that had been piling up since the start of the week. It hadn’t been a particularly busy week, not at all, but for some reason the staff had been slacking off in cleaning up their desks after work. And then, all of a sudden, the office had become a total mess. No one could find anything since the files were mixed up with one another. Some were even mixed up with unnecessary documents like shopping lists and restaurant bills. The situation was so chaotic that Kai finally made a decision that he himself would clean up the desks—while secretly hoping that his staff would feel self conscious and offer their help. But either his strategy was poorly executed or his staff was made of truly heartless people, only two of them stayed behind to help him out.  
  
The first was his assistant, Ruki. Kai knew he could always count on the boy. Young though he was, compared to the rest of the staff, he was probably the most diligent one. He was also suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder—or in Kai’s shorter, simpler term: ‘clean-freak’—so it was rather surprising he hadn’t already turned the office upside-down before Kai made his decision. And second, quite astonishingly, was Byou. Why astonishing? Because from all of his staff members, Byou was the least likely man to volunteer and help Kai clean out the place. One look at his desk and everybody could tell how lazy that guy was. But then his motivation became clear once Kai asked him. “I think my boyfriend is cheating on me,” he said quite openly. “I don’t have the mood to go home and see him. It’s best for me to stay here and help you out.”  
  
Well, that’s Byou for you. His sexual orientation was no longer a secret among the staff—and everybody knew he had a boyfriend named Rui who was cute but overly bossy—but his frankness that was bordering on vulgar could be rather shocking sometimes.  
  
Anyway, the clock was ticking, and here he was with his two staff members, four folders away from getting the office thoroughly cleaned up. As expected, it was actually on Byou’s desk that they spent most of their time. Byou looked nowhere near guilty even with Ruki glaring nonstop at him and making various snide comments about how unorganized his desk was. Byou even agreed when Ruki said he should just incinerate everything on his desk to make cleaning it much faster. But eventually they got through that obstacle and, finally, reached the last desk in the room, which was Kai’s own and, thankfully, it wasn’t as messy as the rest.  
  
But just when Kai was about to tell Byou to grab a damp cloth to wipe his desk’s surface, a knock on the door made them all jump on their feet.  
  
“Who the hell—”  
  
“Probably Manabu—”  
  
“Did he leave something behind?”  
  
“Well, he’s forgetful, alright…”  
  
“Let me get the door,” Kai said in the end, leaving his staff members guessing who it could be. He walked toward the door, half-suspecting that he would see Manabu—came to get something he had left behind, just like Byou and Ruki said—behind it.  
  
When Kai got the door open, he soon realized that it wasn’t Manabu. Instead, the late night guest was a stranger, a man dressed in black coat and a black fedora hat that hid most of his face. In the dim light, it was impossible to recognize who it was, even if Kai had known him.  
  
Kai stepped back carefully, as inconspicuously as he could manage without seeming rude. In his eight years experience of working in this field, he had learned that it was much better to be too careful than to regret the outcome later. He could save himself from various dangers just by taking extra precautions, and tonight, that extra precaution was done by making a little space between himself and this stranger who had just knocked on his door. If he turned out to be a crook aiming to hurt him, then Kai would have a decent space to prepare a counter attack.  
  
Kai’s suspicion was soon shoved aside the moment the stranger opened his hat and revealed his face. He was no stranger at all, apparently. Well, if you were living in Shibuya, you would definitely recognize him. After all, this man’s portrait was enlarged to the size of a ten storied building and was hung in the middle of the most crowded street in town. The very recent news said that he had been crowned as Japan’s sexiest man, based on a survey done by a local magazine.  
  
Tall and slender, broad shoulders, prominent facial features, and sharp, black eyes that had mesmerized thousand of girls, Kai couldn’t have mistaken him for anyone else. But why would someone like Shiroyama Yuu—or more widely known as Aoi—pay their office a visit at this hour?  
  
“Hi—I mean, good evening,” said the famous actor. “I’m sorry for the untimely visit. But I couldn’t find the time to visit during the day.”  
  
Kai couldn’t help but notice the anxiety in Aoi’s posture and also in his voice. He nodded politely and greeted his guest.  
  
“Don’t mind it, please,” he said, smiling. “But to tell the truth, you’re lucky that we’re on overtime.”  
  
He stepped aside to let his guest enter the office. It didn’t escape his view, how stiff Aoi’s back were, and how the man kept glancing behind his back as if he was afraid a bunch of paparazzi was following him, ready with cameras in their hands to capture the most suspicious moments. Kai could only hope that it was just Aoi’s paranoia, that no paparazzi were actually following him. It would be a horrifying mess if their office—and Kai’s face, God forbid!—showed up on the newspaper first thing in the morning.  
  
In one side of the room were a set of sofas and a table, and Kai led his guest there. He didn’t have a particular rule about where he or his staff should meet their clients, but he would usually choose the sofa. He really liked those sofas; in fact, he was the one who picked them up from the furniture store. It was almost like love at first sight. From the color of the cushions’ fabric (dark blue with silver stripes) to the elegant armrest design, he loved every single aspect about these sofas. He could have brought them home to his own apartment, but considering that he spent almost seventy percent of his daily life in the office, he decided to arrange a small multipurpose space in the office and placed the sofa set there. It soon became the staff’s favorite spot, and Kai was just as happy—as long as nobody was smoking while sitting on these lovely sofas, risking the ashes, or worse, the still burning butts of their cigarettes falling onto the cushions.  
  
Aoi sat down on one of the sofas, looking more agitated than ever before. Kai could almost hear the sound of his mind ticking like a time bomb.  
  
“Would you like something to drink?” Kai offered, smiling. “I think we still have some chamomile tea. It’s really good to calm the nerves.”  
  
“Yes, I would like that, thank you.” Aoi nodded.  
  
Kai turned around and found both his staff members standing behind him looking stunned. Byou was still somewhat cool, but Ruki seemed to be completely awestruck. Those eyes were wide, and with his jaws hanging low, Ruki was staring at the guest as if he had walked in with three heads above his shoulder instead of one.  
  
“Ruki,” Kai waved in front of Ruki’s face. His assistant spluttered; and somehow Kai knew that if the lighting had been a little bit brighter, he would have been able to see how red Ruki’s face was. “Ruki, if you don’t mind, please make the gentleman a cup of tea.”  
  
“O-oh, yes, of course, a cup of tea. Just a minute,” he strutted off quickly, vanishing to the next room which happened to be the small cafeteria.  
  
Kai spent another second wondering what was going on with his assistant, and then proceeded to meet his guest. He sat on the sofa opposite of Aoi. The man before him seemed too nervous he actually forgot to take off his coat. Kai wasn’t really surprised; this wasn’t the first and definitely would not be the last time he saw someone entering his office looking daunted. If he had been a potential client visiting this office for the very first time, he would have been nervous as well—or at the very least, clueless. It’s quite normal for people to be uneasy when being face to face with anything… abnormal.  
  
“So,” Kai began, trying to sound as friendly as possible, “If I may ask, what has brought you here?”  
  
“I’m having a bit of—oh, excuse me, I haven’t introduced myself,” said the guest. “My name is Shiroyama Yuu.”  
  
“There’s really no need to introduce yourself, Shiroyama-san, or do you prefer to be called Aoi?”  
  
The dark haired actor shook his head. “No, please, keep that name for when I’m out there, in front of the cameras,” he said. “Being called Aoi so often makes me forget that I’m still Shiroyama Yuu…”  
  
“Ah, I understand,” Kai smiled reassuringly. “Very well, then Shiroyama-san it is…”  
  
“Yuu is fine.”  
  
“Yuu-san, alright,” Kai grinned. “Then you can call me Kai, that’s how my staff members call me. I’m the head of this office. This is Byou,” he nodded to his left, where Byou was sitting behind his desk in silence. “He is one of my staff—or, I should say, investigators. And the other one who you’ve just seen was Ruki. He’s my assistant.”  
  
Right after Kai introduced Ruki, the person himself emerged from behind the door carrying a tray with a couple of cups on top of it. A soothing, chamomile-scented vapor wafted from the cups, filling the air around them. However, Ruki looked far from soothed. Kai felt like he needed to pray so that Ruki wouldn’t drop the whole tray on his way over to the table.  
  
But thank goodness, the cups and Ruki made their way safely to the table. Kai told him to sit down, and Ruki did what he was told without saying a word. As he watched his assistant taking a seat on the sofa next to him, he made a mental note to himself to ask what on earth had taken over his usually calm and composed assistant once he was finished his business with his guest.  
  
After letting Yuu take a sip from his cup and seeing that he was somewhat comfortable, Kai cleared his throat and spoke up. There was some sort of an unwritten rule here to make a short introduction of the institution before they got down to business—the purpose, probably, was to let the guests know what they were going to face. At the moment, Kai only hoped he wouldn’t be scaring Aoi—or Yuu away.  
  
“Well, Yuu-san,” Kai said, “first of all, it is my obligation to welcome you to PSC. PSC, which stands for Paranormal Studies Center, is an institution whose main object is to investigate various paranormal and supernatural events. This is the Department of Investigation and Recovery, where all investigative tasks are being done. Currently there are sixteen investigators working in this department, including me; each of us specializes in different matters. Like Ruki here, he specializes in Curses, Jinxes, and how to clean them up. And then Byou, he’s pretty good in Astral Aura Detection. There are various other specializations, but there’s no need for us to get to too many details for now.  
  
“You see, these are not our real names. It might sound rude but it is written in our standard operational procedure that we are not allowed to reveal our true identities, even in front of our clients, except under emergency situations. But you will know more about that once we hand you the contract.  
  
“But I am not pressing you to sign a contract with us. In the end, it is completely up to you.” Kai clasped his hands, finishing his brief introduction. “However, I must insist that everything that we discuss here stays here. You can’t mention our names, not even our aliases, to anyone else.”  
  
“No problem,” Yuu replied. “I completely understand what it’s like to want to be anonymous.”

 

 

 

  
**\- TO BE CONTINUED -**


	2. Chapter 2

“So where exactly did you hear about us?” Kai asked, curious. He was happy with the potential of Yuu becoming their new client, but yet he was also worried that one of their old clients had blurted too much about the institute. A little promotion would be good; but over exposure would be bad—really bad. He wondered if it was time to add a new point in the institute’s contract, which would specifically describe the law suits that their future-clients would face if they happened to reveal the institute’s investigators to anyone.  
  
“From a guy who is working in the same agency as I am,” Yuu answered. “His name is Saga. Was he really a client here?”  
  
The image of a lanky guy with wavy brown hair emerged in Kai’s mind. Oh yes, he remembered Saga—Sakamoto Saga, to be exact. To tell the truth it was actually hard not to remember him. He had one of the most annoying cases of poltergeist that PSC had ever dealt with. For four months he had lived in constant terror in his new apartment, with his furniture moving by themselves and unseen creatures making noises when he was trying to get some sleep. Kai assigned three of his staff to handle the matter, thinking they would finish the job in three days. But in the end, it took them three weeks and three additional crew to be able to completely get rid of the entity in Saga’s apartment.  
  
A thorough research finally revealed that the apartment used to belong to a girl who hated her ex boyfriend, who had dumped her for another girl; she hated him so much that she committed suicide, bringing her vengeance all the way to the afterlife. It was Saga’s worst luck that he bore some resemblance, though very slight, to the dead girl’s ex boyfriend.  
  
Kai could totally understand why Saga had felt the need to panic when the angry apparition began throwing vases and ashtrays at him.  
  
“Yes, he was,” Kai answered Yuu’s question. “I’m sorry to say he was one of the most unfortunate clients we have ever worked for. But he is alright now, isn’t he?”  
  
“He’s fine,” Yuu nodded. “He’s moved out of that apartment. We’re neighbors now, actually. He lives two doors away from my place.”  
  
“That’s good to hear.” Kai thought of the day when his staff asked him what they should do when they failed to exorcise the ghost out of Saga’s apartment; he had intended to recommend Saga to move right out of that apartment, but he knew that it would be a useless advice, because as long as the ghost’s grudge had not been sated, it would just keep on chasing after Saga no matter where he went.  
  
Finally, as an act of desperation, Kai contacted a backup. If he had had the privilege of a different way out, he wouldn’t have even considered calling that man. But everyone had run out of ideas, and disappointing a client was out of the question—not to mention dangerous, because it was a man’s life at stake. So Kai had no other choice. He prayed with all his might that nothing bad would come up from this decision that he had made. And thank goodness the effort turned out to be successful, but Kai hated to think about the consequences. He hoped that, whatever Yuu was here for, they wouldn’t eventually come to the point of needing that man’s help again.  
  
Shrugging off his discomfort, Kai quickly returned to the conversation.  
  
“So Saga-san told you about PSC?” he asked his guest.  
  
Yuu nodded. “He told me that you guys could help with… these matters. And then he gave me this address.”  
  
All of a sudden Kai heard the sound of a cough coming from right beside him. When he turned around he saw Ruki tapping the watch he was wearing around his wrist. Kai was instantly reminded that it was nearly midnight, and that everyone must be tired.  
  
“Alright, Yuu-san, please tell me everything,” Kai said, glancing at his assistant for a second. “We’ll decide what we should do once you’re done.”  
  
Yuu nodded, and then took a deep breath. From the look on his face, Kai could tell that it wasn’t going to be a very lovely story.

 

  
***

  
“Up until three weeks ago my life was still peaceful,” Yuu began. “And then all of a sudden these little troubles started happening. It began with things disappearing… minor things, at first, like my sunglasses, lighters, and silver accessories. I thought it was just me—I could be a bit careless with my stuff sometimes—so I didn’t give it much thought. The next thing I knew, I started receiving anonymous calls. No one spoke when I picked up, and the next minute, the line went dead. It’s always like that, every single time. I’ve tried a dozen times to call back, but oddly all I got was the service center saying the phone number I was calling was unreachable.”  
  
“That sounds like what stalkers would do. Doing anonymous prank calls, stealing their idols’ things…”  
  
Yuu shrugged. “That’s the first thing that came to my mind as well. Believe me, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was some stalker.”  
  
From the way Yuu spoke, Kai had a feeling that something like that had actually happened. He didn’t have an inkling of what kind of lives celebrities like Yuu lead every day, but from all the gossip shows he had watched on television (not that he watched that kind of shows very often), it didn’t seem very easy. If he was to imagine himself having to constantly worry about people recognizing him on the streets, and finding out where he or his family lived, he would go insane. But then again, he was used to this line of work where the secrecy of his identity was very crucial, so having it any other way was simply unthinkable.  
  
“And it would have been simple if it had been a stalker instead. All I had to do was call my manager and he would get me a couple of security guards to get rid of them. But sadly it wasn’t,” he shook his head tiredly. “A stalker—a human one, at least—wouldn’t be able to break into my apartment and disturb me while I slept.”  
  
“What??”  
  
“You heard me,” Yuu said. “It started with almost indiscernible touches—the kind that made me feel like I had left the window open so the wind was blowing against me. But I always checked in the morning, and found that all the windows were shut properly.  
  
“I didn’t give it much thought, though. You know how people tend to imagine things that aren’t there when they’re alone and mentally strained, don’t you? Well, that’s what I thought it was—nothing more but my imagination. I figured I had been too tired from work, and to tell you the truth, I haven’t had a decent sleep in ages. Something must have been wrong with my nerves that had gotten me imagining eerie things appearing in my room in the night.  
  
“However, my self-diagnosis failed to explain what happened the next time. It was three or four days after the first disturbance. I remember it was around five p.m.—work ended pretty quickly that day, I had only one photoshoot and a short interview. My manager drove me home, and once I arrived, I quickly headed toward the bathroom, wanting to take a long, hot bath. Without further ado, I dumped my clothes on the floor and got into the bathtub. I got to enjoy a relaxing first five minutes before it began.  
  
“First, there were only noises. You know the kind of noises that rats make on top of your ceiling? Like when their nails were scratching against the wooden plank and ticking against the wall? That’s how it was, but a hundred times louder. It was as if those rats were as huge as, well, human beings. And they sounded so close as if my walls were no thicker than a piece of paper.  
  
“I yelled, expecting my voice to scare the rats—or whatever those things were—away. And they did stop. As I was finishing my bath, I thought about filing a complaint to the owner of the building about possible vermin disturbance.  
  
“Although I did sleep comfortably that night, the next night was not as peaceful, nor the nights afterward.” Yuu paused, taking a long sip from his chamomile tea. “You’re right, this certainly does wonders to my nerves.”  
  
Kai smiled. “I’ve always saved a box or two in my buffet at home. It helps a lot when I’m having trouble sleeping.”  
  
“Maybe I should stack up on these too.” The actor smiled as well, but there was no humor in his expression. The look in his eyes seemed rather sad in Kai’s opinion.  
  
Something clattered behind Kai, the noise nearly made his heart jump. He looked over his shoulder to find Byou—he was rubbing his temple, and the plastic pencil case in front of him had rolled over, its’ contents were spilled all over the table. It wasn’t so difficult to guess that the guy had fallen asleep just now, and bumped his own forehead against the pencil case.  
  
The blonde guy waved his hand in apology. “Go on, don’t mind me,” he said.  
  
Kai frowned, but ignored his staff anyway and returned to his guest. Yuu seemed undisturbed, and if he felt bothered by Byou’s insolence, he certainly wasn’t showing it.  
  
“Please continue, Yuu-san,” he asked Yuu, to which Yuu responded with a nod.  
  
The dark haired actor closed his eyes, sniffing the vapor that was drifting up from his cup, and then resumed his story.  
  
“Since that night, I don’t think I’ve ever really slept at night. Every time I tried to close my eyes, there would be noises, random noises like things falling to the floor, the door closing or opening, or sometimes even footsteps. To deal with it, I turned on my stereo or the TV, thinking that the sound from the devices would drown those noises. The strategy worked, but only for a couple of nights. Because next, as if knowing I had found a way to avoid the noises, this… thing began to make physical contacts.”  
  
“Physical contacts?” Kai repeated.  
  
“Yes,” Yuu confirmed. “And this time, it was much worse than the first experience that I could no longer think of it as merely my imagination. It was one particularly cold night, when I felt something touching my hair. It was as if someone was brushing their fingers through my locks. Obviously, I woke up, confused and frightened. No one, nothing could be seen around me. The room was empty, save for myself. And then… well, this might make me sound childish, but that night I slept with the lights on.”  
  
“I do that too, sometimes…” Ruki mumbled. He hurriedly lowered his face when everyone turned their attention at him, and bit his lip as if he hadn’t meant to say what he just said out loud.  
  
Again, Kai was amazed as he looked at his assistant. What on earth had gotten into him? But whatever it was, Kai knew he had to wait until later to talk about it with Ruki. He still had a conversation in progress with Yuu.  
  
With a surprise, Kai saw that Yuu had a small smile curved on his lips. It was nice to see that somehow Ruki had cheered him up a bit. Kai reluctantly steered back into the conversation. “That was horrible, Yuu-san. But I’m sure that was not the final disturbance that finally drove you to come to this office. Wasn’t it?”  
  
Just as Kai had expected, the expression on Yuu’s face turned gloomy again. The actor shook his head. “No, it’s not. It became even worse. The thing in my room did all sort of things that could possibly scare the hell out of me, from pulling my blanket, switching the light on and off, poking my back… and finally, last night, I heard someone whispering in my ear. I’m not sure if it was a woman’s voice or a man’s… I’d say a woman’s because of what it said.”  
  
“What did it say?”  
  
“It said, ’Aoi, I love you. You’ll be mine soon,’ and afterward…” Yuu shivered, the cup on his hand rattled. “… and afterward, this ghost, apparition, or whatever it is, kissed me on the lips.”  


 

**\- TO BE CONTINUED -**


	3. Chapter 3

Monday morning, nine a.m., the Department of Investigation and Recovery was already bustling with noises. Kai was sitting behind his desk, a cup of latte in front of him, and a bundle of contract papers in his hands. He had spent his weekend summarizing his meeting with Shiroyama Yuu, which hadn’t been that difficult to do because everything was still fresh in his memory. Page four to five in the contract consisted of his conclusion of Shiroyama Yuu’s story, compiled in several points. The last page was still unsigned—that’s why they had agreed on an appointment today. Yuu should be here around ten a.m.; he told Kai that he would be able to make a quick stop before going to work. But before he arrived, Kai would like his assistant to read the papers once again to check for mistakes.  
  
Speaking of which, he hadn’t had the chance to talk to Ruki since they left the office Saturday night. He was still curious as to what had come over his usually-usually calm assistant the other day. Looking across the small space between his desk and Ruki’s, he could see the young man was absorbed with his little black agenda book—the book that he carried almost everywhere. The dark pair of eyes behind those large-framed glasses seemed so focused at whatever he was reading in his book.  
  
Deciding it was best if he did not postpone any longer, Kai called his assistant. “Ruki, I need you to check this out.”  
  
Ruki rose up from his seat, carrying his agenda along, and walked toward Kai’s desk. He sat before Kai and reached out for the papers. Kai handed the whole bundle to him, but just before Ruki began reading, he lowered his voice and asked him what he had been meaning to ask.  
  
“About the other day,” Kai said, making sure no one else but the two of them could hear his voice. “What was wrong with you?”  
  
Ruki stuttered, “W-what… There’s nothing wrong with me.”  
  
Kai shook his head, unimpressed. Did Ruki really think that, after all these years, Kai hadn’t already memorized his behavior? And moreover, Ruki was probably the worst liar Kai had ever met in his entire life. His smallest action betrayed his effort in hiding his feelings.  
  
That’s why Kai had never considered putting him in Undercover section.  
  
“Well,” Kai drew a deep breath, hoping it would give the effect he wanted on Ruki. “Forgive this fussy man for worrying about you. I just thought you might be stressed out or something.”  
  
Kai lowered his sight, pretending to type something on his laptop, secretly watching Ruki’s reaction. And just as he had expected, Ruki looked restless—as if he was feeling guilty for making Kai worried, like Kai said he was. If Kai was to be honest, it was a little cruel of him to be playing with Ruki’s emotion like this, but it was purely for Ruki’s own sake. The last thing Kai needed in his office was a staff who couldn’t concentrate with his work, especially Ruki, considering his important role as Kai’s assistant.  
  
“I’m sorry, Kai-san,” Ruki said.  
  
Kai lifted his gaze, and nearly shocked himself seeing the color of Ruki’s face. The young man looked as if someone had slapped him hard across the face; his cheeks were bright red and Kai swore he could feel the heat coming from them despite the cold air blowing from the air conditioner above his head.  
  
“It’s embarrassing, really,” Ruki continued. “Aoi—I mean, Shiroyama Yuu was my senior in high school. I was just shocked of seeing him again after such a long time.”  
  
Kai nodded. “Why didn’t you just greet him the other day?”  
  
“He wouldn’t recognize me,” Ruki answered, a hint of dejectedness in his voice. “It’s been years since graduation, which was when I last saw him. I don’t think he knows me by my name—on second thought, I don’t think he even knew me even by my real name. I was such a recluse in high school, no one ever bothered to talk to me, let alone him.” He sighed, “Anyhow, you’re the one who doesn’t allow us to reveal our identities to anyone, even the clients.”  
  
A brief laughter escaped Kai’s mouth. “You’re good at getting back at me,” he said light-heartedly. “But will it be okay? I was planning to put you in this case since it’s most likely your expertise, but if you think you’re not comfortable with the job—or the client, in this matter—then I’ll get someone else.”  
  
Ruki quickly shook his head. “No, Kai-san, I’ll be fine. I can’t let something like this affect my work.”  
  
Kai smiled. As expected of his assistant, he always pushed himself so hard. That was probably the reason why Kai had always trusted him with most of the Department’s work, and why he had appointed him as assistant in the first place.  
  
“Alright then,” Kai nodded, deciding he should just give up on the matter. If Ruki said he could handle it, then Kai was sure he could handle it. “You can take the papers and see if there’s anything I need to add. You should get prepared because Shiroyama Yuu will be here anytime soon. Oh, and will you please ask Byou, Hiroto, Ayame, and Shou to join us for the meeting? We’ll probably need Uruha too, but where on earth is that guy?!”

  
***

  
At fifteen minutes past ten, Kai and his staff had gathered in the meeting room. Uruha, who had just shown up five minutes before, was sitting beside Ruki, a pair of sunglasses covering his eyes. It wasn’t hard to guess that he had spent the night before doing what he liked best: drinking. Especially after every weekend, he usually showed up at the office swaying from a hangover, slightly grouchy and unresponsive to anyone, but thankfully, to this point it had never affected his work. He was one of the best Séances that the Department currently employed, so it was almost impossible not to involve him in every case that the Department had ever handled.  
  
Right in front of Uruha, across the desk, was Shou. As usual, he looked perfectly styled. He was wearing a royal blue shirt with black vest, his caramel-colored hair was gently teased, and a dazzling smile was stretched wide on his face; he looked almost like a model plucked right out of a fashion magazine. At the moment, he was smiling at his cup of latte as if it was the most wonderful thing in the world.  
  
Despite his appearance, Shou was a very competent Exorcist—a rather heartless one, in fact. If Kai was to be honest, Shou scared him sometimes, but of course he never let Shou or any of his staff knew this. He was keeping it as a precaution, so that he would make the mistake of underestimating Shou’s ability.  
  
Right next to Shou was one of the three female investigators in the Department, who went by the name Ayame. She was a woman with childish features—thin body, small face, and large, doll-like eyes—which was the reason why people often mistook her as a teenage high school student. But she was far from being a teenage high school; no one would have ever guessed that she was actually a mature, twenty six year old woman, and she had been working in PSC for four years. She hadn’t always been in Kai’s Department, but she started in the Administration Department first before everyone realized what an excellent Analyst she would make. And that’s what she was now: an Analyst, and one of the best people that the office had ever employed.  
  
Next on the list of the staff Kai had invited to join the meeting were Byou and Hiroto. Both of them were representatives from their specialty, which was Astral Aura Detection. Byou was invited because he had been present when Yuu visited Saturday night, but since Kai couldn’t trust Byou to be focused throughout the meeting (that’s just how Byou was), he invited Hiroto as well. Hiroto was three years Byou’s junior, lacking of experience, but at least he could keep Byou on track.  
  
Inside the meeting room, both of the Astral Aura Detection agents were sitting side by side around the table, Hiroto busy chirping like a bird, constantly nudging Byou to tell him what had happened last Saturday. Byou looked quite irritated that, if Kai didn’t start the meeting soon, he would soon reach for the nearest ashtray and smash it against Hiroto’s face.  
  
As if an answer to Kai’s worries, the actor himself showed up on the door, large sunglasses covering almost half his face. He wasn’t wearing his hat this morning; Kai suspected he didn’t want to ruin his very neat hairdo. He had on a black, long-sleeved shirt, black denim pants, and a long chain of gothic-looking necklace hanging down to his chest. He looked… well, he looked just like what he was: a celebrity; and Kai bet that he must have a shooting or something to do later today.  
  
“I’m sorry I’m a bit late,” said the actor. “I wasn’t expecting the traffic to be so awful.”  
  
Kai smiled, shaking Yuu’s hand and led him into the room. He took a seat right next to Uruha, who immediately turned around and stared at Yuu, flabbergasted. But before Uruha could say anything, Hiroto butted in loudly.  
  
“Aoi! You’re Aoi, right?! Oh my God, I love your latest movie!”  
  
Kai believed Hiroto would have climbed over the table had Byou not stopped him and kept him on his seat. For a moment he wondered if it had been a mistake inviting Hiroto to this meeting.  
  
“Please calm down, Hiroto, you’re going to scare off our client,” Kai spoke up, eyeing his staff sternly. Hiroto shut his mouth, but obviously he was having a hard time to keep still on his seat. “Now, everybody, I’d like you to meet Shiroyama Yuu-san, our new client—well, he will be our new client as soon as he signs the contract.”  
  
Yuu stood up, took off his sunglasses and bowed. “I’m pleased to meet all of you.”  
  
Kai proceeded to introduce the staff attending the meeting, and then explained what had brought Yuu to their office.  
  
“Saturday night, just as I, Ruki and Byou were cleaning the office after the mess everybody made last week,” Kai emphasized on the last part of the sentence, making sure he glared into everyone’s eyes, “Yuu-san visited and told us of the incidents that he has been experiencing lately. In front of each of you is the summary that I’ve written after the conversation, photocopied from the contract. I want you to read it, and as soon as you’re done, we will continue with deciding our actions and who will be members of the team.”  
  
Kai gave everyone fifteen minutes to read the summary, and afterward, he handed the bundle of contract papers to Yuu.  
  
“You can wait until we’re finished talking about our action plan before you sign it,” he told Yuu, but Yuu shook his head.  
  
“I trust that you are professionals in this matter,” he said, smiling, and skimmed through the papers until he found the page where he should put his signature. There seemed to be no doubt in his expression when he took the pen that Kai offered and scribbled his signature on the bottom of the paper.  
  
Kai smiled wide. “Thank you. We’ll do our best to help you, Yuu-san.”  
  
“I know you will.” Yuu nodded, and sat back, looking elated. He had a look on his face that seemed to be telling Kai the burden—or a small part of it, at least—he had been carrying had been lifted off of his back, just by signing the contract.

  
***

  
At exactly eleven o’clock, the meeting was over. Shiroyama Yuu had just got into the elevator that would take him to the basement where his car was parked. He said he had a shooting scheduled at eleven thirty; Kai could only pray that he could get there in time. To be able to cross the distance in today’s traffic would be quite a miracle.  
  
Despite the limited time, the meeting went smoothly. In the end they had agreed on a number of things, like the investigators that would be responsible for the initial inspection, and when they should start. As he had previously told Ruki, his assistant would be in the team, along with Hiroto and Ayame. Tomorrow morning they would visit Yuu’s apartment and did a thorough search—for anything, anything at all that might have been causing any kind of paranormal disturbances there.  
  
Kai estimated the initial inspection, as usual, wouldn’t take too much time. A day would be enough, or maybe even less. And then afterward the team would hold a meeting and report to him what they had found. The day after tomorrow they would be able to determine what they should do about the situation.  
  
The sound of steps was approaching. Someone sidled up to him, and soon enough Kai recognized Uruha’s voice.  
  
“So what do you think?” he asked; in his hands was a cup of coffee—probably vanilla latte, Kai guessed, because that’s usually what he liked to drink.  
  
Kai looked over his shoulder at his staff. “What do I think about what?”  
  
“The result of the meeting,” Uruha said, sipping his drink. He had taken off his sunglasses, and despite his eye-bags being prominent, he looked quite refreshed now. “My opinion still stands. It must be the work of some fans, probably a jinxed gift or something.”  
  
“I didn’t know you’re such an expert in that matter,” Kai laughed. “Well, we’re going to have to wait until the inspection team is done with their work tomorrow before we can jump into any conclusion.”  
  
Uruha shrugged. “I don’t have to be an expert to know that. It’s just too obvious. People like him are bound to have at least a few maniac fans that would do anything just to get their idol’s attention. We can’t forget the fact that he is one of the most popular celebrities in Japan these days. And something like this has happened before, right?”  
  
“Yes, a few times, as far as I can remember. In most cases, we found that the culprits were mostly those overly attached fans.”  
  
“Exactly. I bet it’s the same, too, this time.”  
  
“I’ll be relieved too if it’s that simple,” Kai sighed, “But this seems different. Why wasn’t this jinx aimed straightly at Aoi? Why wasting so much effort just to create these close-to-poltergeist disturbances? Mostly, in similar cases, the victims were immediately affected by the jinx, either physically or emotionally, or both. You know how people suddenly change after touching a jinxed item, don’t you?”  
  
Kai saw Uruha frown for a moment as if he was trying to remember something, but then the taller man nodded.  
  
“It’s like that woman a few months ago, right?” he asked. “Someone anonymous sent her a… was it a bracelet?”  
  
“A silver bracelet,” Kai confirmed.  
  
“A silver bracelet, and the moment she touched it, she was suddenly enamored by someone she hadn’t even met before in her life.”  
  
“Yes, that poor woman.” It saddened Kai to remember what had happened to that woman before his team managed to fully clean her from the jinx.  
  
Uruha hummed thoughtfully. “If it’s not a jinx, then what could it possibly be…?”  
  
“I honestly don’t know yet, Uruha,” Kai said. “But personally, I hope you’re right, because if it’s a jinx just like you said, the job will be simple and can be done quickly. All we have to do is destroy the item that holds the jinx, clean the apartment from the remaining negative energy, and then it’s over. Except if it turns out that this fan is persistent and keeps sending even more items…”  
  
“Isn’t there some sort of a protection charm that you can use to keep the jinxes out of your residence? I heard Ruki gave something like that to our previous client.”  
  
“Yes, there is. If it comes to that then we can let Ruki do what he does best.”  
  
Uruha smiled. He held his coffee cup in his right hand, and slung his left arm around Kai’s shoulder. “I’m still baffled as to how an actor like Aoi could end up being here, in this institute. I was just going to ask him that when you ended the meeting. Honestly, Kai-kun, did you forget to tell me that we’ve begun putting ads on the newspapers?”  
  
Kai shook his head, laughing. “No, of course I have not begun putting ads anywhere, Uruha. How much trouble do you think that will get me?” he said. “Come on, let me tell you all about it during lunch.”  
  
“You’re buying, right?” Uruha grinned almost from ear to ear, his eyes twinkling in delight.  
  
“Actually, I brought my own lunch. But I made enough for two,” Kai smiled.  
  
“Wait, let me guess. Omelet with mayonnaise?”  
  
Kai stopped dead in his tracks. “How on earth did you know that? You’re a Séance, not a Mind-reader!”  
   
“Oh, Kai,” Uruha giggled cheekily. “It doesn’t take a Mind-reader to memorize what you bring for lunch almost every day.”

  
**\- TO BE CONTINUED -**   



	4. Chapter 4

Ruki stood in front of the massive gate, vaguely wondering what on earth he was doing here. It was his first time ever visiting this exclusive area, and so far, everything he had seen had successfully intimidated him. The streets were really quiet compared to the awful traffic outside the area, with sophisticated, expensive-looking cars roaring by every once in a while. A few times people passed by, joggers with their purebred dogs, ladies with designer clothes shouting for their drivers, etcetera. Other than those, their surrounding seemed almost deserted. Even the usual noises that one would hear in a big city didn’t reach this region. It was as if an invisible dome was covering the entire complex, secluding it from the world outside.  
  
There was a name for phobia of being alone in a wide open space, but Ruki couldn’t quite remember what it was. He was beginning to think he might have developed something akin to it at the moment.  
  
“I wonder how much you have to spend to be able to rent a place here.”  
  
Hiroto’s voice shook Ruki out of his stupor. The small, blonde man was standing beside him; his round eyes were focused on the mansion that stood before them, a few feet ahead behind the gates. Ruki followed his example, and took in the view of the building.  
  
It looked elegant, although a bit plain in Ruki’s opinion. The walls and window sills were painted in white and gray, and together with the modern, minimalistic architecture, gave the entire building a rigid, almost cold appearance. There must be at least ten stories in total from top to bottom, added with a parking lot in the basement. Each apartment seemed to have its own balcony. There wasn’t much of a space for playgrounds in front of the building, but Ruki had a feeling there must be a yard at the back—probably big enough to fit a fancy swimming pool including a private restaurant.  
  
The more Ruki looked at the complex before him, the more reluctant he felt about getting inside. He grew in a common family, and he had always been surrounded by common people. At work, he had average salary—although the job itself was nowhere near average; but throughout, he was living the average life. He’d like to think it was quite reasonable that he felt rather daunted at the moment, being surrounded by all these luxurious facilities.  
  
“I have no idea,” he finally answered Hiroto’s previous musing. “But by the looks of it, I’m not sure either of us will be able to afford living a day here, not with our paychecks.”  
  
“You’re probably right,” Hiroto chuckled. “I might just collect my salary for a whole year and still won’t be able to afford a place on the lowest floor. I wonder what our client will say if I ask him how it feels to live here… Speaking of which, have you called him?”  
  
Ruki shook his head. “I was just about to,” he said, hesitantly reaching for his phone in his pocket.  
  
Even before Ruki had the time to unlock his phone, Ayame was suddenly standing right beside him. The woman did have the tendency to show up when you least expected her to, which always made Ruki feel a bit queasy to be around her. This morning she might look like a teenager in her black t-shirt (which had ‘I WANNA HEAR YOU SCREAM’ printed in bold, white letters) and black jeans, but Ruki knew better than to underestimate her. He had had enough experience working with her to know that she was more of a worthy companion than a burden.  
  
“You don’t have to call,” she spoke up calmly. Ruki and Hiroto looked up at the same time as she pointed ahead. “He’s here.”  
  
Walking past the now opened gate was Shiroyama Yuu—or more widely known as Aoi—and all of a sudden Ruki was reminded just why exactly he felt doubtful about coming here at the first place.  
  


***

  
  
Despite Ruki’s initial presumption, Yuu’s apartment didn’t quite show that it was inhabited by a famous actor. No posters were stuck on the wall, no award trophies displayed on the racks. The place seemed like a normal place for a civilian to live—an awfully rich civilian, Ruki might add—but then again, so far they had only been into the living room.  
  
The room was spacious, and Ruki could not help to notice that almost everything in it was monochrome. White curtain and black carpet; polished ebony tables and fluffy white sofas, white walls with black accents. Ruki was particularly interested in the onyx desk that was situated on one side of the room—it was very stylish, with classic, Baroque-ish engravings on its sides. On top of its smooth surface were a number of candles, aromatic ones if Ruki wasn’t mistaken. And snuggled in between those candles was a large, egg-like object that glowed with gentle, golden light. A lamp, Ruki supposed; a uniquely shaped lamp. He wondered where Yuu had bought it.  
      
Sounds of the morning news channel filled the room, coming from the 90 inch flat screen television on the other side of the room. Ruki honestly had only seen such a large television in the commercials. It was rather overwhelming to see the real thing. He wasn’t technologically-impaired, and he did love electronic devices, especially the ones he could actually afford—this TV was definitely not one of them.  
  
If Ruki had been trying his hard to stay calm, Hiroto was the complete opposite. The guy was helping himself with a tour around the living room, admiring and commenting on almost every object he saw. He took his time in front of the bookshelf, wondering aloud about each and every title he could find. Once he was done with that, he sat beside Ruki, and shrieked happily at the sight of the massive television.  
  
“Oh my God, I’ve always dreamed of having such a big TV in my own apartment!” said Hiroto, practically hopping on the sofa. “I bet it’s going to be awesome playing video games with that. Do you play video games, Yuu-san? I haven’t seen any game console or DVD in this room, so probably not, huh? Well you might not have the time, what with all the shootings, interviews and whatever…”  
  
The man Hiroto addressed to was smiling, as if it was actually amusing to see someone so hyper about his furniture.  
  
“As a matter of fact, I do play games,” Yuu answered lightheartedly. “I usually play in my room. It’s more comfortable in there.”  
  
“Awesome! What games do you like to play?” Hiroto asked cheerfully, which was immediately cut off by Ayame’s cough.  
  
If Ruki hadn’t known her for so long, he would have thought she had done nothing more but clearing her throat. But obviously not; that cough meant she wanted Hiroto to stop wasting their time. And she was right. They couldn’t spend all day here while Kai was waiting for their reports back at the institute.  
  
So, finally, Ruki took over. “Hiroto, you can talk about video games later,” he said, trying to sound stern but it didn’t come out quite like he wanted to. It was difficult to act like he wasn’t bothered by the fact that Shiroyama Yuu had been his senior in high school, but he had to do his best. He was, as he’d like to say, a professional. “I’m sorry, Yuu-san, but I think it’s best if we just start conducting our investigation right now. This is a big place and there are so many things to examine. I hope you don’t mind showing us around, and we might have to ask you some questions.”  
  
“Of course,” Yuu nodded and stood up, brushing his hands down his navy-blue button-down shirt. “So, where should we start?”

  
***

  
The first room they went into was the main bedroom, under the consideration that most of the disturbances happened inside it. The moment Ruki walked in, he was surprised to find that it was unlike what he had imagined. He thought it would be like the living room, classy, elegant, and mostly monochrome, but it wasn’t. The room was positively more colorful, with blue curtains and burgundy bedcover. The walls were covered with posters—not of the actor himself, but of various rock and visual kei bands that were pretty legendary in Japan.  
  
Ruki spun slowly on the fluffy sky-blue carpet, staring at the walls. It felt like entering a completely different place, although they were still in the same apartment. It was almost as if he had just walked into a teenager’s room, a teenager who happened to have a very wide taste in popular music. And then his sight fell on the sleek, black guitar that was leaning on its stand in the corner of the room, and the amplifier right next to it.  
  
“You still play?”  
  
Ruki hadn’t had the time to stop himself before it was too late. Now he could only freeze in horror, fretting that he had said too much. He was just remembering his high school days when he saw his senior—now the famous actor standing in the very same room as he was—playing guitar in a school festival, and then it just… slipped out of his mouth.  
  
“Ah, my guitar…” Yuu strutted from the doorway, approaching Ruki and the rest of the team. “I did mention it in an interview once or twice, didn’t I? Well, I do still play every once in a while, but really, my skill is not exactly something I’d like to boast about.”  
  
Ruki could just feel a breath of relief leaving his lungs. So Yuu thought he had read it from an interview. That’s better, he supposed, than having to explain how he truly had found out that Yuu played guitar.  
  
Before Hiroto had the chance to find Yuu’s stash of game DVDs, Ruki rushed all three of them to start conducting their search. To start it with, Hiroto did a thorough scanning of the entire room. He and Byou possessed the same ability, which was to sense astral presences that were better known as auras. To a certain level, Hiroto’s ability was stronger than Byou’s, but he had a tendency to get distracted very easily. Ruki supposed that was why Kai had assigned Ayame along with them; she knew exactly how to stir everyone back to their main job.  
  
Yuu was also of a big a help. Ruki believed it was because he was desperate to be free of all the supernatural disturbances he had been experiencing. He showed the team around the room, and in the process, Ruki found even more interesting things about Yuu that reminded him of high school, but this time he managed to keep his mouth shut.  
  
A few minutes later, Hiroto shook his head and said he didn’t find anything specifically threatening in the room. There were a couple of ‘passerby’s (a term he used to name the entities that were simply ‘floating’ by, not staying on one particular spot for a very long time), but they were harmless.  
  
“Are there any connecting room? For example, a closet, or a bathroom?” Hiroto asked Yuu.  
  
Yuu nodded. “My walk in closet is right there,” he pointed to a door, right next to a stylish dressing table (which was full of various skincare products). “I have a smaller closet, but I use it as a store-room for some of the gifts I received.”  
  
“Gifts?” Ruki felt a surge of suspicion washing through his mind.  
  
“Yes, gifts from the fans,” Yuu laughed sheepishly. “I can’t exactly throw any of them away, but I’m worried the room is getting too full…”  
  
As if on cue, Ruki and Ayame turned to each other. It seemed like they were both thinking of the same thing. A celebrity of Yuu’s caliber must have received a lot of gifts… and Yuu wouldn’t have had the slightest idea if some of those things had been jinxed, or worse, cursed.  
  
“Can we see what’s inside the gift store-room, please?” Ruki asked. In his stomach, he felt the familiar tug that usually, in most investigations, told him that he was heading toward the right direction.

  
***

  
It didn’t take them long to finish their work; it took approximately half an hour. Most of that time was used to push their way through tons of gifts. The inside of the closet hadn’t been messy—in fact, considering the number of things stuffed into it, Ruki thought it was rather tidy and most importantly clean. It seemed Yuu had spent a few times a week cleaning it. And it seemed, quite obviously, that he truly never threw away anything his fans gave him.  
  
But as soon as they were inside, the work was swift. It hadn’t been too difficult recognizing the exact item they had been looking for—it was almost as if it had been sitting there, waiting for them to find it. It was in the form of a brown teddy bear, not an unusual item one would get as a present, but Ruki could tell something else was stuffed into the bear besides Dacron fibers. Careful not to touch it for too long, Ruki had wrapped the teddy bear with a plastic bag and stuffed it into his backpack.  
  
“There’s nothing on the bear that can tell us who it’s from,” Hiroto said, now that they were all back in the living room again.  
  
“I’m not sure if there was ever any note that came with that bear,” Yuu was staring at the bear unsurely, as if afraid the fluffy little thing would jump right out of Ruki’s bag and attack him.  
  
“Who’s responsible for sorting out the gifts and handing them to you?” Ayame asked.  
  
“The staff in our management,” Yuu answered. “It can be anyone in the company, really, from the security guards to my manager himself.”  
  
Ayame stood quietly, her eyes staring emptily toward the floor. Ruki knew she was thinking hard, the Analyst that she was. He could only wonder about the possibilities that she was thinking of at the moment; sometimes her analysis could be very much unpredictable.  
  
“Alright,” Ruki said. “I think it’s enough for today.” He turned to Hiroto, “Do you see anything else that is suspicious?”  
  
Hiroto shook his head. “Nope, nothing but that ominous thing in your bag.”  
  
“Good. Then we should get back to the institute and report to Kai. The sooner we find out what is hidden inside this bear, the sooner we can figure out how to cleanse it.”  
  
Hiroto and Ayame nodded in agreement, and then, led by Yuu, all of them headed toward the exit.  
  
“So, does this mean from now on I won’t be experiencing anything… weird again?” Yuu asked just when the team was about to walk out the door.  
  
“Hopefully no,” Ruki answered, careful not to promise their client anything. In some occasions it could be fatal to tell their clients that the situation was already secured when the investigators were not sure of it themselves. “If you still experience anything out of the norm, you may immediately contact the institute, and we will send someone over as soon as possible. But I do hope it won’t come to that, Yuu-san.”  
  
Yuu smiled. “I understand. I’ll store the institute’s number in my quick dial, just in case.”  
  
The inspection team filed out into the hallway, Ayame leading the way, Ruki right behind her, and Hiroto following close. Before they walked away, Yuu bid them goodbye. Ruki noticed the sense of relief etched on the actor’s face, and couldn’t help to feel a twinge of worry—worry that Yuu would again be a victim of some hostile paranormal presence, or worry that he wouldn’t be able to see Yuu again since they had gotten their hands on the suspected cursed item; Ruki couldn’t tell which.  
  
Heavy with the burden of both his mind and the teddy bear in his bag, he walked along the hallway, leaving his very first experience of visiting a famous actor’s apartment behind.

  
**\- TO BE CONTINUED -**   



	5. Chapter 5

“Well, there’s something in it alright,” Byou sank back in his seat, after taking a sniff of the teddy bear that was sitting almost innocently on the table before him.  
  
Kai smelled nothing, of course, apart from the faint scent of his now-cold cup of coffee on the table in front of him. It was only Byou and that special ability that he possessed that no one else in the institute had. He was really good in detecting astral auras with, yes, none other but his sense of smell. He said that each and every supernatural presence had its own specific scent, but no matter how often he tried explaining it to Kai, Kai simply couldn’t imagine a ghost smelling like anchovies or rotten eggplant.  
  
Hiroto, on the other hand, could use his sight to detect otherworldly presences and auras. Those presences took many different shapes and sizes, he said, from the really scary ones to normal looking, almost human kinds. He was usually very good with his ability, but the downside was that it would be useless when he came face to face with a creature that was powerful enough to conceal their aura. This had happened before in several chances, and mostly had put them in deadly situations. In their line of work, not knowing what you were dealing with was very dangerous. Although none had been killed so far, but they had come close to it too often for Kai’s liking.  
  
Kai had been meaning to recruit more people for the Astral Aura Detection team (so far he had only three people in that team: Byou, Hiroto, and Manabu), but the problem was, it was nearly impossible to recruit people discreetly into the institute, let alone his department. The Human Resources Department had been having routine meetings discussing a brand new method of recruitment, one that was effective but didn’t require them to post fake job vacancies on the newspapers. These job vacancies kept attracting the wrong people, and at the moment they were really running out of manipulated reasons to reject those misguided applicants.  
  
“But it doesn’t smell particularly… bad,” Byou spoke again after a while. He was frowning, a look of confusion strewn across his face.  
   
“What do you mean?” Kai asked.  
  
“Well…” Byou said hesitantly. “Remember when I told you that evil spirits usually smelled sour, like something rotten?”  
  
Kai nodded. He also remembered that, according to Byou, good spirits smelled like flowers, or freshly baked bread in case of really friendly spirits.  
  
“This one doesn’t emit ghostly scent,” the blonde man said. “It’s actually pretty… normal—a bit evil, yes, but normal.”  
  
It was Kai’s turn to frown. “Normal how?”  
  
Byou bit his lip for a moment, thinking. “To put it simply: it smells just like you and me, like all of us,” he said afterward. “Like… living beings.”  
  
“Ah, that might explain why the aura looks a bit purplish,” Hiroto commented.  
  
“Purplish?” Kai asked.  
  
“Yeah, just like what I see from girls. Most girls in their normal mood state have basic purple aura, and their emotion will appear in different colors outside that purple one.” Hiroto explained. “On a side note, the color of dead people’s souls is usually black or murky grey. The emotion that died with them comes along with a vague tint above that basic color—it can be red for anger, yellow for happiness, etcetera.”  
  
“And you see purple aura coming out of this bear?”  
  
“Yes,” Hiroto nodded. “It’s a bit vague, like vapor from a cup of coffee, that’s why I was honestly feeling doubtful the first time I saw it—it’s because I couldn’t determine the real color. But now that I can take a good look at it, it looks purplish.”  
  
Byou nodded his head, agreeing to what Hiroto said. He reached out toward the teddy bear and held it close to his nose, sniffing it. “At first I honestly thought the scent was from Ruki,” he said, “You know, because he was the last person touching it. This citrusy scent does remind me of you somewhat, although you smell a bit bitterer than this—no offense, Ruki. This smells sweeter… God, I know I’ve smelled something like this before…”  
  
The group of people—Kai, Hiroto, Ayame, and Ruki—was quiet for a moment while Byou was turning the teddy bear around and around in his hands, as if by doing so he could determine what gave out the scent he smelled. After a moment, it was Ruki who finally spoke up.  
  
“Actually… I’ve learned about one specific method of hexing someone by inserting a part of yourself into an object, and leave the object in the possession of the person you want to hex,” he muttered slowly and almost methodically, as if he was quoting from a book—which he probably was. “It can be a lock of hair, clip of nail, and sometimes, in extreme cases, a vial of blood.”  
  
“Ah… I think I’ve heard something like that, too,” Kai said.  
  
“That’s it!” Byou jumped off the sofa all of a sudden, startling everyone around him. “Shampoo! This teddy bear smells like hair shampoo!”

 

***

  
It was already an hour after lunch break was over, but when Ruki’s trainee showed up at the office he was still carrying a large glass of coke in one hand and a half-bitten burger in the other. His hair and clothes looked as if they had been swept by the wind—which was probably true considering he rode his big black bike everywhere he went. His black, skull-patterned bandana, that he never seemed to take off no matter where he was, was hanging around his neck, looking as scruffy as ever. His blue flannel shirt drooped loosely on his torso, and his baggy jeans were hung so low around his hips that it was a miracle they didn’t slide down when he was walking.  
  
But the whole Department had already gotten familiar with Reita—that’s the trainee’s alias name—and had memorized all of his antics. He might be a little older than Ruki, but he had just entered the institute two months ago under the recommendation of a lady in Administration, who happened to be a neighbor of his. There was a local shrine in his neighborhood, and this guy, despite his young age (and his appearance), had been helping out there since he was a kid.  
  
“The head priest is my uncle,” he said, once when one of the staff asked him about it. “He gives me a few hundred yen every time I show up at the shrine and help him sweep the yard, tie the ropes on the charms, or other trivial tasks.”  
  
Disregarding his ridiculous story about his uncle (a priest bribing his nephew to help out at the shrine?), they found that Reita was quite a natural expert in dealing with curses and jinxes. Moreover, due to the years he had spent in the shrine, he had often seen his uncle or other priests there performing curse cleansing rituals so it had become a familiar routine for him.  
  
“I’ve seen just about anything, from dolls to a piece of paper,” Reita said in his early days working at the institute. “The suspects were mostly women, and the motivation was almost a hundred percent revenge. I have never been able to understand why they didn’t just go straight ahead and face the people they’re having quarrels with. Women are so complicated…”  
  
His comment hadn’t received a very nice reaction from Haru and Miho, the two female employees who worked under the same expertise as he was; but as time went by, even those girls finally understood that Reita was just a simple guy who didn’t know how to hold back whatever he wanted to say.  
  
For this opportunity, Kai knew that Ruki would have preferred to ask Haru, Miho, or even Jin for assistance, but unfortunately the two girls were off on an assignment in Niigata since last week, and Jin had not recovered from the heavy flu he caught a few days ago. So the only choice left was Reita. It’s not that Reita was incapable; no, on the contrary, Kai had witnessed the talent that the boy possessed, and it was nothing ordinary. He might still be a trainee for the moment, but his experience exceeded those who had worked a lot longer in the institute under the same expertise. Seeing that there was an increase in the number of cases that involved curses and jinxes lately (Kai could not fathom the reason why people had become so vengeful these days), it was unacceptable not to keep Reita in the team, despite his carelessness.  
  
The only problem was Ruki. Kai knew just how much of a perfectionist his assistant was, and how intolerant he could be most of the times. That explained why Ruki would always put on a sour face whenever Reita was around. While Ruki was an epitome of strictness, Reita was the complete opposite. They were too different to be working with one another.  
  
Kai sighed. He could only pray that those two would get along once Reita became a full employee.  
  
Reita placed his coke on the table, and proceeded to take a huge bite out of his burger. He sat down, munched, and spoke even before he swallowed that chunk of burger down his throat. “Sorry, I didn’t realize I was spending too much time at the accessory shop,” he said. “They were showing me all the new items that have just arrived. I really couldn’t stop staring at them.”  
  
By accessory shop, of course Reita meant bike accessory shop. That’s where he spent most of his free time at, and the reason why he always came in late after lunch break.  
  
“Please swallow whatever is still in your mouth and then take a look at the doll, Reita,” Ruki said, not even trying to hide his annoyance.  
  
Reita didn’t seem fazed by the frown on Ruki’s face. Leisurely, he continued munching, and once he was done, he placed his burger on the table right next to his coke, and grabbed the doll. As soon as he touched it, a swift comprehension drifted across his face.  
  
“Ah,” he mumbled. “Poor teddy bear is jinxed. It’s nothing big, though.”  
  
“Nothing big?” Kai repeated.  
  
Reita nodded. “The jinx is not really strong,” he said. “Whoever did it probably didn’t know the rituals that are required to produce a strong, effective jinx. Honestly, I blame the internet for this. Lots of people think they know everything and post stupid things on websites, including stupidly made-up methods of jinxing and cursing. The next thing you know, clueless teenagers are performing the wrong rituals. The lucky ones will only end up with weak jinxes like this, but the not so lucky ones…” He shrugged, leaving his sentence unfinished. Kai could only imagine the worst things that Reita had seen.  
  
Kai turned to Ruki. “In that case, you two can deal with this quickly, right?” he said. “How long do you think you will need to cleanse this doll?”  
  
Ruki was staring intensely at the doll in Reita’s hand. Kai almost thought he was trying to drill a hole through the teddy bear and into Reita’s stomach with his glare.  
  
“Two, three hours max,” he finally answered. “That is if Reita can refrain from talking about his bike until the task is done.”

 

***

  
Kai had never thought that talent was a necessary feature for those who work under the Curses and Jinxes section. He had believed every theory that a person might need to handle curses and jinxes could be learned through books, and every practice of cleansing them could be perfected through experience. His assistant was a perfect example of that, because he entered the institute with absolutely no talent and no supernatural abilities; only pure determination and an immense will to learn. Kai remembered the earlier days when Ruki had been a trainee himself; he hadn’t known the slightest thing about curses or jinxes, let alone how to deal with them. But Ruki had proven what a strong-willed person he was, and by the end of his training period, he had learned just about everything a man needed to know in order to handle curses and jinxes.  
  
The same goes to the rest of the staff in that section. Neither Haru, Miho, nor Jin had any special ability when they were recruited (except maybe Miho with her extraordinary skill of finding out about new gossips ahead of everyone else), but just like Ruki, they learned and gained some experience along the way, perfecting their knowledge and skill as time went by.  
  
Back then, Kai had believed talent was nothing important in this specific field. But of course that was before he met Reita.  
  
Reita was really one of a kind, that’s why Kai thought, although he was careful not to mention this in front of Ruki. It was as if this guy was born to handle cursed things and jinxed items—and that might as well be true, considering his upbringing and where he had spent his entire childhood. He had a very strong intuition—or sixth sense in a more popular term; so strong that he didn’t need the guys from Astral Aura Detection to help him find a cursed item from a mountain of random things. And he could tell what kind of threat was planted inside an item with just one touch. That was a really rare gift. Kai had a feeling that Reita’s uncle—the priest that he had mentioned in several occasions—knew about this as well, and that’s why he had been making him work in the shrine as some sort of training for Reita without Reita himself realizing it.  
  
Kai suspected that the same knowledge of Reita’s ability was what had been bothering Ruki ever since the kid entered the institute. Ruki envied Reita who could perform all the work in the section without having to spend so much time learning or practicing like Ruki had to.  
  
Kai heaved a long sigh; he had to try to stay positive and simply be thankful that the work today had been completed successfully. And despite Ruki saying that it might have taken three hours to get the job done, Reita had finished it in approximately one hour.  
  
Kai had watched the whole procession; first Reita had cut off the teddy bear’s head, and then pulled out the Dacron fillings from inside the head. Soon afterward, he had extracted a lock of straight, dark brown hair from within. Holding the lock of hair in his hand, he had murmured a long line of mantras that Kai couldn’t quite comprehend.  
  
“I didn’t bring my things with me today,” Reita had said after he had finished muttering the mantras. “To finish the cleansing I need to complete the rituals, and I can’t do that without my things. Do you need this to be done immediately?”  
  
Kai had said yes—the sooner the task was done, the better. So two hours ago Reita had ridden home on his motorbike with the teddy bear in his bag, and just now he had called Kai on his cellphone, telling him that the job had been done successfully. The jinx was gone.  
  
He took a peek at his wristwatch and saw that it was ten minutes to seven p.m. Some of his staff members were already preparing to leave the office, Byou being the most anxious of them all. He must have made peace with his boyfriend if he was that impatient to go home. Deciding that he too should get prepared, Kai turned off his computer, drank that one last drop of coffee from his glass, and stood up from his seat. And that was when his cellphone rang in his pocket.  
  
Without checking the caller ID first, he picked up the phone. “Hello?”  
  
The voice that answered was unintelligible at first, filled with nothing but stuttered words and trembling gasps. It took him a while to recognize who it was on the other end of the line, because since he met Shiroyama Yuu, Kai had never heard him sound so scared and panicked before.  
  
“Help me,” said Yuu, the fear in his voice was so audible that it couldn’t possibly be an act. “It’s not gone… It’s still here… It’s still here…!”

 

**\- TO BE CONTINUED -**


	6. Chapter 6

For a second Kai thought he had knocked the wrong door, because the man who opened it was not Yuu. He was taller and leaner, and appeared to be a few years younger than Yuu. He had shoulder-length light brown hair, round eyes, and several piercings on his lower lip. He was smiling when he greeted Kai and his team, but there was anxiety written all over his face that his smile couldn’t hide.  
  
“Hi,” he said. His voice was crisp and friendly. “Aoi is waiting inside. Come on in.”  
  
The man opened the door wider for Kai, Ruki and Hiroto, and the three of them swiftly filed into the apartment. Kai took a look around; earlier today he had heard Ruki’s brief explanation of the place, and, just as Ruki had described it, it didn’t look very celebrity-ish. The interior was rather simple—cozy, but still quite down-to-earth considering the glamorous image that Aoi posed out there in the entertainment world. But he supposed everyone had their personal taste, and Aoi—or Yuu—turned out to be the kind of man who didn’t like anything too fancy in his life beyond the big screen.  
  
Led by the stranger, Kai and his staff entered the living room, where apparently Yuu was sitting on a sofa. The actor noticed the group approaching him, and he stood up from his seat to greet them.  
  
“Thank you for coming on such a short notice,” he said, shaking everyone’s hands. The stranger that had opened the door for Kai and his staff sidled up to him, smiling. “Oh, right, let me introduce you to my manager,” Yuu continued, patting the man next to him on the shoulder. “His name is Kazuki.”  
  
“It’s a pleasure to meet you guys,” Kazuki said while he and Kai shook hands. “Aoi told me a bit about the problem he’s been having lately. I’m glad he’s found some professionals to help him solve it.”  
  
Kai nodded. “We’re doing what we can, Kazuki-san,” he said, and continued to introduce his staff to Yuu’s manager.  
  
Yuu proceeded to ask them all to sit down in his living room. Kai and his staff members crammed in one long sofa, Yuu sitting in front of them. Kazuki went through the troubles of getting a crate of beer for all of them from the refrigerator. Kai looked at Hiroto warily, and just as he feared, he could see how gleeful the blonde man was when those cans of beer passed under his sight. Kai nudged him—hard—with his elbow, and gave him a stern glare which only meant one thing: one can, no more. It was already a tiresome day without having to deal with a drunk, even-more-hyper-than-usual Hiroto tonight. Thankfully Hiroto seemed to understand; with timid hands he reached forward toward his can, opened it, and sipped slowly as if he was cherishing every last drop he was permitted to drink.  
  
“Alright, Yuu-san, the sooner we get to the point, the better,” Kai said. “I’d like you to tell me, in detail, please; what happened after Ruki left this place?”  
  
For a split second, Kai could see Yuu shiver as if a gush of cold wind was passing by, but the room was warm. It must have been a severe experience, because Yuu looked terrified even now after it had passed. His manager was sitting beside him, as if trying to give the man some moral support.  
  
“Well,” the actor began. “After Ruki-san left, I went to the office and spent the whole afternoon there, discussing some new projects I have to do starting next month. I didn’t come home until 9 p.m. after dinner, and then around 10 p.m. I took a bath, and was done probably half an hour later. That’s when it started, in my room.” He paused, turning his head slightly to the side, eyeing the door on his left. Kai could easily guess that that’s his bedroom.  
  
“I felt unusually good after bath,” he continued. “For the first few minutes I was sorting out the stuff I brought home from the office—a bundle of script, interview materials, etcetera; my stereo playing something nice. Nothing was out of place, and I was just thinking, finally, finally, I was going to have a calm night. But the door suddenly creaked open. I quickly turned to see who was there, but of course there was no one. I was all alone in my apartment. I tried to convince myself that I hadn’t properly closed the door, and the wind simply blew it open. It was a sad, useless attempt, of course, because the windows were closed so there couldn’t have been wind blowing inside the apartment.  
  
“I didn’t have time to catch my breath because, the next thing I knew, the desk right in front of me rattled. The sound was like… like something just bumped against it. At first I thought it was an earthquake, but very soon I realized that the floor wasn’t shaking, and nothing else in the room moved besides the desk. I could feel the familiar fear emerging, getting a grip on me, but I told myself it couldn’t be happening again. I mean, Ruki-san had removed the cursed item from this house, so I had no reason to worry that the… creature, or whatever it is, is still here; right?”  
  
Ruki cleared his throat before Yuu continued. “There is a possibility that we have taken the wrong item,” he said, sounding embarrassed. “It will need a longer, more thorough observation to make sure that there isn’t any other threatening item in this place.”  
  
“That’s right,” Kai added. “The time it takes for the inspection stage is never the same in every case we’ve handled. Sometimes we need two, three days to get to the bottom of the matter. Some severe cases might even take a whole month of initial observation before we can move on to the next stage. It really depends on the situation.”  
  
Before they left the institute earlier, Kai had been worried that Yuu would be disappointed in their performance in duty. After all, he had given his client his word that they would do the job as quickly as they could. And the situation earlier today had made them all believe that everything had been going smoothly and the job would be completed very soon. It wasn’t the first time that Kai and his team were mistaken. But no matter how often he confronted the same predicament, it never got easy, especially when he came face to face with his clients.  
  
But fortunately Yuu didn’t seem like he was going to complain. “I see,” he said. “So it is most likely that whatever is causing these happenings is still here in my apartment?”  
  
“I can’t say for sure until we conduct a more thorough research,” Kai answered. “Without any certainty as to what is causing your problems, we might as well be groping around in the dark. I can refer to various analyses, give you some assessment about your situation based merely on speculations, but I know that is not a wise thing to do. The last thing I should do is jump into the wrong conclusion. But please, do continue with your story first, and then we will try to sort out the whole situation and decide what we should do next.”  
  
Yuu nodded, and then continued where he had left off. “Well, as soon as I realized that the desk was moving by itself, naturally I stepped back, getting as much distance as I could from it. I reached as far as my bed when the desk suddenly stopped rattling. Everything was silent afterward. I was beginning to think that I myself had caused the desk to rattle, or that there was a rat scuttling behind it. But then I heard footsteps. Something—something I couldn’t see—was walking… no, running, it sounded fast, really fast, and then… and then it pushed me.”  
  
Kai could hear Hiroto gasp in shock. He himself felt troubled hearing Yuu’s story; it was starting to sound like they were dealing with a strong, undetectable creature that had enough power to make harsh physical contact with its victim, in this case, Yuu. But he kept his mouth shut and let Yuu continue.  
  
“I fell onto the bed, too shocked to yell. It felt like a nightmare…” Yuu shivered momentarily. “But it was too real to be called a nightmare. There I was, sprawled on the bed, my back against the surface, and something… something was holding me down. It wouldn’t let me go no matter how hard I struggled. It was as if someone or something was sitting on top of me, straining my hands against the bed. Only no one was there, at least no one I could see.  
  
“It had to be one of the most frightening moments in my life. I fought as hard as I could to free myself, but it was useless. Whatever it was, it was strong. It felt like… like that one scene I did in one of my movies where I was fighting someone almost twice my size. He was supposed to pretend slamming me down to the ground, but I guess he got a little carried away and did it too seriously. I hit the ground so hard I thought my body was paralyzed. Even more so when he straddled me and pinned me down with his hands; his weight alone was suffocating me, and worse than anything was the realization that, if it had been real, I could have been killed. I knew it was just acting, but it was really scary. I really, really thought I was going home with a broken rib or two that day.  
  
“It’s a lame comparison, I know, but I just want to explain how helpless I felt tonight. Only this time the feeling was multiplied by a hundred because I couldn’t see what was I was fighting against. I couldn’t break free. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t scream for help. I thought I was really going to…”  
  
Yuu stopped to take a breath. It was unnerving to see how hard it seemed just to convey what had happened. Kai could only imagine how terrifying it had been experiencing all that himself. If you were dealing with a visible, touchable creature, you could easily evade its attacks. But if it was invisible, you could never guess where your attacker was, so guessing what it intended to do would be nearly impossible, let alone counteracting it. That’s the most complicated part in facing something supernatural, and Kai supposed that’s one of the reasons why the institute existed in the first place: to help those who didn’t have the resources or abilities in taking care of supernatural entities or events that were caused by them.  
  
At the moment he was secretly wishing he had gone to law school like his mother had advised him to. Being a lawyer seemed a lot easier than battling against ghosts and poltergeists.  
  
Kai shook that thought away, and getting his focus back to his client, he saw that, right next to Yuu, his manager was giving him some support by patting his back. Yuu smiled at him gratefully. And seeming to be urged by the gesture, he then continued.  
  
“I fought as hard as I could, trying to pull my arms free from that thing’s grip. I kicked around randomly. I couldn’t see anything, but I could feel my legs colliding against something solid… It was really weird,” Yuu shook his head in confusion. “But it seemed to work. After a while, that thing, whatever it was, let me go. As soon as I was freed, the first thing I did was to flee from my room. I tried to calm myself a bit so that I could think clearly, and then I grabbed the phone and called you,” Yuu looked at Kai, “And afterward, I called Kazuki. I didn’t want to wait here all by myself until you arrived. Kazuki lived upstairs—two floors above us, actually—so it didn’t take him long to get here.”  
  
Kai remembered Yuu telling him that Saga was also living in the same building, which made him wonder if the whole company actually lived here. Or perhaps, the entire building belonged to the company. He might find all the actors and actresses from the same company inhabiting every room in this apartment complex.  
  
But that wasn’t his main concern for now. Kai proceeded with his questions regarding the attack.  
  
“The disturbance, did it stop as soon as you stepped out of your room?”  
  
Yuu pondered for a moment. “Yes, I think,” he said. “I didn’t notice anything. I’m not sure if it was because I was too shaken up, or I was too preoccupied calling you and Kazuki. But no, nothing particularly bizarre happened to me after I left my room.”  
  
“How long did Kazuki take to reach here from his own apartment?”  
  
“Not long, two, three minutes, maybe,” Yuu answered. “And we were on the phone the whole time until he showed up at my door.”  
  
Kazuki nodded, adding up. “I told him not to hang up and keep talking. I didn’t even stop to grab some decent pants or even a pair of slippers. I just ran all the way here with my phone pressed to my ear.”  
  
Kai looked at the manager and only then noticed that the man was wearing knee-length jerseys and tie-dyed oversized t-shirt. The tuft of messy bed hair on his head emphasized the careless appearance he was supporting. He did look like he had just jumped right out of his bed.  
  
“How was Yuu-san’s condition when you arrived, Kazuki-san?” Kai asked the manager.  
  
“Hmm…” Kazuki took a look at Yuu carefully. “He was in a state of shock, if I may say so. He was sitting here on this very sofa, trembling as if he’d been out in the cold for hours. And he couldn’t speak coherently. It took me a while to actually hear and understand what he had just experienced.”  
  
“And nothing happened while you’re here with Yuu-san?”  
  
Kazuki shook his head. “No, nothing.”  
  
“I see,” Kai turned to his staff. “What do you think, Hiroto?”  
  
Hiroto had one hand on his chin. His face was deep with thoughts, obviously contemplating about everything that he had heard.  
  
“This is really unusual,” he said after a moment. Confusion was thick in his voice. “When I was here with the inspection team this morning, I really couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary except the stuffed doll that Ruki confiscated. We’ve gotten that doll cleansed, so I don’t understand why Yuu-san is still experiencing these disturbances.”  
  
“Is it possible that something is tampering with your sight?”  
  
Hiroto shrugged. “I was able to see everything else, even the weaker presences that were passing by,” he said. “But you’ve got a point. There is a possibility that we’re dealing with a creature that possesses the ability to conceal its aura.”  
  
“That doesn’t sound very comforting,” Yuu said, staring at Hiroto.  
  
Kai jumped in. “There are various possibilities, Yuu-san,” he said, making sure to keep his voice as calm as he could. “Astral Aura Detection is a very hazy subject, and we have limited resources in that matter…”  
  
“Limited staff, you mean,” Ruki mumbled.  
  
“Yes,” Kai eyed his assistant sharply. “Limited as they are, the staff members we have in the institute are highly qualified people who know exactly what they’re doing. Given enough time and support, I’m sure they will be able to find out what is currently haunting your residence.”  
  
In the next half an hour, Hiroto and Ruki went to investigate in Yuu’s bedroom, where the incident tonight had taken place. Kai stayed in the living room with Yuu and Kazuki, trying to explain the various scenarios that he thought were possible regarding these disturbances that Yuu was experiencing. He was in the middle of telling the other two about one specific case he had worked on a few months ago, a case with an almost similar situation where his team failed to detect the source of the paranormal occurrence, when his staff members emerged from Yuu’s bedroom.  
  
“That was fast,” Kai said. His staff members shook their heads, their faces looked perplexed.  
  
“The room is clean,” Hiroto said. “Save for a couple of orbs passing by, but they are no threat.”  
  
Ruki, to Kai’s surprise, said, “Maybe we should have brought Reita along tonight. He might have been able to detect some traces of… whatever it was that had been in that room.”  
  
It was rather amusing to see the sour look on Ruki’s face when he said that, but Kai chose not to comment about it. Instead, he thought about what they should do now considering their latest situation. He knew that everyone was expecting him to make a decision, and by the look that Yuu and Kazuki were giving him, he knew he had to be tactical about it. He couldn’t just randomly make up some last minute plan, but he couldn’t take too long either. They all had had a long day, and even a perfectionist like Ruki could get tired too when being pushed to the limit.  
  
Once everyone was seated again, Kai spoke up.  
  
“Alright, for now I advise you to stay at someone else’s place, or get someone to accompany you if you still wish to stay in this apartment tonight. We can’t let you stay anywhere all by yourself.”  
  
“I’m not planning to, Kai-san,” Yuu nodded, agreeing. “I’m going to stay at Kazuki’s apartment for the rest of the night.”  
  
“Good,” Kai said. “I’m going to hold a meeting tomorrow with my staff. We have so many things to talk about, and more importantly, I will have to decide what we have to do next. There are some things that might need your opinion, though, so if you think you have the time to…”  
  
Yuu appeared to be sorting out his schedule in his mind, and in the end, he looked at his manager. “Don’t we have a meeting at the company at eleven thirty?” Kazuki nodded to confirm, and then Yuu returned to Kai. “If it’s before eleven thirty I think I can attend. I’d like to know if I could be any help, too.”  
  
They soon agreed on the meeting hour, which would be at nine a.m. the next morning. Kai thought there should be enough time before Yuu arrived to assemble his staff and give them a short briefing before they all began discussing their action plan. For the time being, it would be sufficient to make sure Yuu had someone to accompany him, in case something else occurred.  
  
It was approximately fifteen minutes after midnight when Kai and his team finally left Yuu’s apartment. Along the dim and quiet corridor, the Head of the Department of Investigation and Recovery of PSC was wondering why he felt like he had missed something… something that seemed small, but crucial. He bit his lip in silence, digging around in his thought to no avail. Once they got out into the cold, dark night, the mysterious thought froze in his mind, and turned into a small chunk of ice that resided in his brain; annoying, but unreachable.  
  


**\- TO BE CONTINUED -**


	7. Chapter 7

From the time he woke up this morning, Ruki could already tell that it was going to be an awful day.  
  
After the late night visit to Yuu’s apartment, he had arrived home at 1.30 a.m. only to find that he had forgotten to turn on his heater so his room had felt like the North Pole (not that he had ever been there). It had taken him an hour or so to get the temperature to normal, and another hour for him to finally be able to sleep. However, his sleep had been restless; he had been dreaming about Yuu and his manager, and how Yuu’s apartment had somehow turned into a cave full of eerie, red-eyed creatures. The rest of his dream had been hazy, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was he woke up too late; his alarm had gone on snooze for God-knows-how many times until it had stopped ringing completely. When he had finally woken up, he found that it was already six minutes to eight, so then, as if Satan himself had been on his heels chasing the life out of him, he had dashed off to the streets, neglecting bath and clean socks altogether, and jumped into the first taxi that he could find.  
  
Thank goodness, he wasn’t as late as he thought he was once he got to the institute. The appointment with Yuu was scheduled at nine; he arrived at twenty to nine, which gave him enough time to wash his face, tidy up his hair to some acceptable degree, grab a cup of coffee and a melon bun from the cafeteria, and hurried into the meeting room where Kai and the team he had assembled were gathered around the desk.  
  
“Ruki,” Kai greeted from his seat. “So nice of you to finally join us. Please, have a seat. We were just talking about what happened last night at Yuu’s apartment.”  
  
With his chin lowered to his chest, Ruki strutted toward the chair right next to Kai and sat down. When he was placing his cup on the desk, some drops of the hot coffee splashed onto his hand. He yelped, but managed to swallow the string of curses that was threatening to spill from his mouth. Avoiding everyone’s gaze, he pretended that his hand wasn’t aching from the spilled coffee and proceeded to flip open his agenda book.  
  
“Right,” Kai continued. It wasn’t hard to notice the surprised tone in his voice; it’s not like he got to see his assistant behave so clumsily every single day. “So, as I was saying, it seems like we need to sort out our options and then decide the best way to deal with this case. First of all, Ayame, do you think the inspection you did with the team was sufficient?”  
  
Ayame, sitting right across Ruki, tapped her chin before answering. “I believe it was. We followed all the procedures properly like in any other case we’ve dealt with. We did a thorough inspection, and managed to procure a jinxed item. There is always the possibility of procuring the wrong item during our first inspection stage. It is nothing unusual.”  
  
Kai nodded. “That is true,” he said. “Which brings us to the main question: what do we have to do from this point forward? Considering all the facts and evidences we have collected so far, I want you to give me some feedbacks. Can we start from you, Ruki?”  
  
For a moment Ruki blanked; his mind was still focusing somewhere between the stinging pain on his hand and the discomfort of wearing a day old worn socks. And then, panicked, he rummaged through his notes and stuttered.  
  
“Uh… right, feedback. I, uh…” He cleared his throat, collected his thoughts, and continued, “Yes. From what we experienced yesterday it’s obvious that we haven’t found the real source of disturbance. Just like Ayame said, I think that we’ve done all the basic standards of initial inspection based on our standard operation procedure. Now, about the actions that we can do,” he paused, sorting out his options. There were so many things going on in his head, it was hard placing them in order. “We might do a second inspection with the entire Detection team…”  
  
“Hmm…” Kai hummed. “We might, but how we can guarantee that we will immediately find out the main cause of disturbance, and that Yuu-san will be safe as soon as the team walks out of his apartment?”  
  
The question brought Ruki to a thoughtful silence. It’s true; what happened the other day was an evident proof of Kai’s concern. There was no guarantee that, even with a second inspection and the entire Astral Aura Detection team conducting a more thorough observation, they would immediately succeed and Yuu would be completely freed from the disturbances. What if this was one of those cases where, like Hiroto had mentioned the other day, the entity was so strong it was able to conceal its’ presence? It would be complicated, very complicated if it was as he feared…  
  
Ruki thought the possibility that they were dealing with a creature with such powers should be put into their consideration. But before he could say so, the person sitting on his right spoke up.  
  
“We might be able to speed things up and cleanse the whole place,” Shou said. “The entity might show itself once we apply a little… persuasion.”  
  
Ruki could feel an uncomfortable shiver creeping down his nape at hearing what Shou said. He knew what Shou meant with ‘persuasion’; he had seen him perform it. It’s not a decent, civilized one-on-one negotiation between Shou and the entities that dwelled in one place, but an all-out spirit summoning that would sometimes last for a whole day. It wasn’t a pretty process. In fact, the last time Shou performed it, their client had been left with a trauma that had needed a few months to heal. Ruki heard that, even now, the poor woman was still having problems going into the bathroom alone without imagining the mirror breaking by itself or the water splashing all over the place without her touching the faucets.  
  
If it was up to Ruki, he would avoid involving Shou in any of the cases, if possible. Or if it wasn’t possible, then Shou would be his very last resort. They had other Exorcists in the institute—Reno, K, Keiyuu. True enough, Shou was their most capable Exorcist; not because he had a flawless list of experience, but because he was swift, cold blooded, and ruthless in his work. He gave those spirits no mercy and exorcised them in what ought to be the most brutal method of exorcism Ruki had ever seen. Kai had told him once that Shou’s method was unorthodox, that most of what he did was more instinctual than theoretical, and that made him all the more scary in Ruki’s opinion.  
  
“I’d like to be certain first before we take your approach, Shou-kun,” said Kai. Ruki swore he could hear Shou mumble, ‘too bad…’  
  
“I think a simple séance ritual can do the trick,” Uruha piped in. “That is, if there really is a wandering spirit in the vicinity.”  
  
“Good idea,” Kai nodded his head; Ruki scribbled down Uruha’s suggestion in his agenda.  
  
“But, let’s say it’s not a restless spirit, a ghost, or anything of the undead,” Ayame said. “Won’t séance be useless?”  
  
Uruha shrugged his shoulder. “True, you can’t summon the undead if there’s no undead around to be summoned.”  
  
“What are you saying, Ayame?” Kai asked.  
  
“I’m just sorting out other possibilities… that we might be dealing with other entities that are not from the realm of the dead. Like curses and jinxes, only living people can produce them, right? In that case, we can’t use exorcism or séance. I think we really need a deeper inspection…”  
  
“Surveillance, you mean?”  
  
“Yes,” the woman nodded. Her black bangs dropped over her right eye. “A 24-hours surveillance. All these disturbances happened when Yuu-san was all alone, at night. If we have one or two of our personnel in his apartment, observing the situation non-stop, we might have the chance to meet our culprit.”  
  
Ruki scribbled some more of Ayame’s suggestion in his agenda, thinking that it was a brilliant idea. 24 hours might not be enough, though, considering that Yuu was mostly away during the day. Maybe if they could spend 3, 4 nights in the apartment…  
  
Apparently Kai also thought that Ayame’s idea was feasible.  
  
“Okay, I think that’s what we ought to do,” he said, nodded in satisfaction. “Ruki, if you can hand in everyone’s schedules so we can—oh, Yuu-san!”  
  
It almost felt like Ruki’s heart just did an impossible jump to his throat, and fell back down into his chest. He would have appreciated it if Kai had announced Yuu’s arrival in a more decent way. But he tried to calm himself as quickly as he could, and then turned around on his seat to welcome their guest.  
  
And it turned out that their guest had brought his manager along.  
  
Yuu looked like his perfect, movie-star self this morning. With his front hair pinned up, revealing his forehead and his brows, he looked a lot fresher than he did last night. He was wearing white t-shirt with a black denim jacket, and black leather pants that hugged the muscles of his legs at all the right places. An intricate silver bracelet circled his left wrist, clinking every time he moved his hand.  
  
As for his manager, Kazuki, he looked almost as flawless in his dark red sweater and black vest. His hair was styled with a little flick to the ends, and from afar it seemed he was also wearing a little bit of eye makeup. Ruki wondered if their company required everyone, including the managers and staff, to look like they were constantly ready for the cameras. He was certain Kazuki’s shoes were more expensive than his monthly paycheck could ever afford.  
  
The actor and his manager shook hands with Kai and Ruki, and then gave a little bow toward the rest of the people in the room. They sat right across the desk from Ruki’s seat. For a brief second, Yuu’s eyes and Ruki’s met; Yuu smiled and nodded at him, and it was all Ruki could do not to topple over his chair and fall bottom first against the floor.  
  
The meeting began without any formal greeting from Kai, and they got straight down to point, because as Yuu had informed them last night that he had business to do at eleven thirty. Kai was telling both Yuu and Kazuki about what the team had been discussing before they arrived, and he came to the conclusion that surveillance was necessary.  
  
“Surveillance,” Yuu furrowed his brows. “You mean you’re going to place one of your staff in my apartment for 24 hours?”  
  
“Not necessarily 24 hours. It might take less time than that, but it might also take more. We need to monitor the situation until we find out what has been causing the disturbances in your apartment,” Kai said. “However I do understand your concern that this might seem like we are interrupting your personal life…”  
  
“No, no, I’m completely fine with that,” Yuu said. “It’s just that, with my schedule, your staff will be left alone most of the times in my apartment. My place is a pretty boring place, unless you’re a hermit who likes to lock yourself in your room and play video games like me…” he ended with a small laughter.  
  
At that, Kai grinned. “I’m sure that won’t be a problem, Yuu-san. However, I have been wondering if there is any company policy that I should consider before deciding anything?”  
  
“Company policy?” Yuu turned to look at Kazuki, and the manager responded swiftly.  
  
“I don’t think there’s any problem in that,” he said. “Except if you’re pointing a female staff to do the job; then we’ll have to worry about the press.”  
  
Oh, yes, that could be a big problem. Let’s say Kai placed Ayame in surveillance, and then Yuu was seen, albeit accidentally, with their Analyst. Ruki could just imagine what the newspapers and gossip shows would be talking about the next day: ‘The Famous Actor is Now Dating a Goth, Prepubescent Teenage Girl’. He had exaggerated a bit about the prepubescent part, but either way, Yuu’s company surely would not appreciate that sort of gossip.  
  
“Ah, I understand, that is quite reasonable,” Kai replied. “Then obviously I shouldn’t assign any of our female staffs for the task.”  
  
“Can I? Can I? Can I?” Hiroto was practically hopping on his seat.  
  
“No,” Kai promptly rejected Hiroto’s request.  
  
Ruki almost laughed out loud when Kai shot the blonde man a vicious look. It was hard for him to feel sorry for Hiroto when he looked so awfully cute, pouting and sulking in his seat. But he had to agree with Kai; getting Hiroto in the assignment would only mean trouble. If he wasn’t fully distracted with Yuu’s video games, then he would be littering around the whole place, forgetting his assignment entirely.  
  
Their meeting turned into a discussion about who should be appointed for the task. Kai first suggested Uruha because he could perform his séance while he was there, but then came the matter of whether or not Yuu would be comfortable with someone he wasn’t familiar with.  
  
“I’m usually okay with strangers,” Yuu said. “I don’t get along in an instant, but once we warm up, I can talk to just about anyone. That excludes really annoying people, of course.”  
  
The room was silent for a moment. Kai was deep in thoughts, probably contemplating whom he should choose from all the staff members present in the room.  
  
Ruki, in the mean time, was checking on his hand to see if a blister had formed because of the little accident earlier. Thankfully, it didn’t seem as harsh as it felt; the skin just below his thumb looked slightly pink, but it looked fine. Judging from the sight, it would be alright soon. But probably he still needed to get something to cool his skin. Just when he thought he would excuse himself from the meeting room, Kai mentioned his name.  
  
“Ruki, what about you?”  
  
“Me? W-what about me?”  
  
Even before Kai explained what he meant, Ruki could already feel that horrendous, sickening dread creeping up from the depth of his stomach. Kai was going to ask him if he would take the job. His mind quickly went into panic, rummaging through various things he could make as alibi, but before he managed to find one that sounded believable enough, something unexpected stopped his thoughts from going any further.  
  
“Yes, I think Ruki-san is the best choice, Kai-san,” Yuu said, smiling. “Not that I don’t approve anyone else from this team, even Hiroto-kun,” he grinned toward Hiroto, who instantly looked happy again now at Yuu’s notion. “But I’ve seen Ruki-san’s efficacy and professionalism when he inspected my apartment the other day. I think he would be perfect for the job.”  
  
Ruki could just feel his throat contracted that it became a little hard for him to breathe. What was this all of a sudden?!  
  
To his horror, Kai responded positively to Yuu’s comment. “That’s exactly what I was thinking, Yuu-san!” he said. “Considering that Ruki is probably the most diligent man in the company—no offense to the rest of you guys in the room—he will be able to perform this task efficiently. However, of course we need to ask Ruki if he is ready for the task. What do you say, Ruki?”  
  
“What do I say…?”  
  
“Yes, what do you say about it?” Kai nodded impatiently. “You’re probably the best option we’ve got, so I hope you agree.”  
  
Ruki felt like he was in a speeding bullet train that was heading toward a crevice. It was up to him to hit the brakes or to let the train along with himself fall to a gruesome death. Seconds were ticking; the whole room was waiting for his answer. More importantly, Yuu was staring at him, expecting him to open his mouth.  
  
He went through his thoughts in a hurry. One side of his brain was stubbornly refusing Kai’s request. He knew if he agreed to it, he would have to brace himself for a couple of days of frustration. Spending a few hours in Yuu’s presence had already been difficult for him; once or twice he had nearly blurted the little facts he had learned about Yuu in high school. He couldn’t imagine spending days with him in his apartment.  
  
But then the other side of his brain convinced him that he was, like Kai said, the best candidate for the task.  
  
It took him a few more minutes to finally come up with the courage to answer. And while he spoke, he wondered if he hadn’t just put his own life in unfathomable misery.  
  
“Okay, I’ll do it,” he said with very minimum conviction. “I’ll do the surveillance in Yuu-san’s apartment.”

  
===

  
The meeting lasted a few more minutes to discuss the necessary extras like how Ruki should perform his assignment and when the best time to start would be. Everything was settled quickly, leaving the smaller details for Kai’s team to talk about later. Finally, Kai ended the meeting at exactly eleven a.m., so that their clients could get to their next destination on time.  
  
“Alright, thank you so much, Kai-san,” Yuu said, smiling when he shook Kai’s hand in front of the elevator. And then he turned to Ruki, and grinned. “Well, Ruki-san, I suppose I’ll see you later at my place?”  
  
Ruki thought his tongue just turned to lead and became too stiff to move. His words sounded like a bunch of garbled consonants in his ears. “Yes, I’ll see you later, Yuu-san.”  
  
And then the manager shook Ruki’s hand. A smirk appeared on his lips when he greeted Ruki. “I hope the surveillance goes as planned, and the problem gets solved soon.”  
  
“I hope so too, Kazuki-san,” Ruki mumbled weakly. “I hope so too.”  
  
It did, just as he expected, turn out to be an awful day.

  
**\- TO BE CONTINUED -**   



	8. Chapter 8

Ruki was slightly thankful that Reita had a habit of blasting ridiculously noisy punk rock songs while he was driving. It wasn’t quite to Ruki’s taste, and at other times it would have annoyed him to no end. But at the moment it was acting as a rather effective distraction. He needed distraction—he needed it badly. Otherwise, his nerves would snap and he would completely lose his calm. It had taken a lot of effort just to drag himself out of his apartment this afternoon knowing what kind of fate was waiting for him. He even had been sorely tempted to dial Kai’s number and call off his agreement, but in the end, his professional side took the best of him. So now, here he was, on his way to Yuu’s apartment; a bag filled with his belongings was sitting quietly on the back seat of Reita’s Mustang.  
  
In the mean time, Ruki was wondering why Kai had sent Reita, of all people, to pick him up and drive him to Yuu’s place. He was probably needed to assess the situation, considering the abilities that he possessed. He didn’t like saying it out loud in public, but whether he liked it or not, he had to admit that Reita’s ability was truly above average compared to the other staffs in PSC. Moreover, his supernatural power was not limited to just one specification. He was the type of person who was born with an amazing gift, and he was trained—although he himself might not realize that he had gone through any kind of training—to use his gift optimally. And it was practical, too, because within that package of a sloppy young man you could find various abilities, from detecting supernatural auras to making protection charms.  
  
So, Ruki concluded, Reita must be sent here as a second detector whose sensitivity level was higher than those of the staffs from Astral Aura Detection division.  
  
Reita’s Mustang took a turn toward a familiar road, and all of a sudden Ruki felt a wash of nausea attacking him. All those distractions that had successfully diverted his thoughts vanished the instant Yuu’s apartment building came into his sight. It’s impossible now to pretend that the whole thing was nothing but a nightmare.  
  
“Well,” Reita turned off his engine; his eyes were staring straight toward the white-and-grey building up ahead. “For an actor of Aoi’s class, this doesn’t look like a very fancy place.”  
  
Ruki shrugged. “It’s a lot fancier than the shack I’m living in.” Ignoring Reita’s burst of laughter he grabbed his bag from the backseat, and stepped out of the car. “Come on, he’s expecting us.”  
  
While they were on their way up to the Yuu’s floor, Ruki felt it was becoming harder and harder to remain calm. His mind was going haywire; all he could think of was how awkward it would be to spend a few days with Yuu in his apartment. He had never been an easy going person; he always had troubles socializing with others. He couldn’t instantly get along with someone he had just met, especially if this person made him feel self conscious. Not that he lacked self-confidence, no. He felt pretty certain about the qualities that he possessed, as long as no one brought up the height topic.  
  
In this case, however, it seemed understandable that he would feel a bit insecure.  
  
The situation was almost the same, back in high school and today. Yuu had always been a popular person. Being the center of attention had always been his thing. With his natural charm, he had always been surrounded by many people. Ruki had often found himself sitting at a distance, staring at Yuu laughing, joking with his friends. Many times it occurred in his thoughts, how was it possible for someone to feel so easy about opening themselves in front of other people? He himself could barely come up a joke that was funny enough to make people laugh. He hadn’t had that many friends either; sad as it may seem, no one had ever asked him to hang out in the weekends.  
  
The process had lasted for a while, but in the end, Ruki accepted the fact that he didn’t have what it took to be a famous guy, and if he gave it another thought, what was so great about being famous anyway? He loved some peace in his life. True enough, his current job was not the most peaceful job in the entire world, but it must be a lot less dramatic than getting a career in the entertainment world like Yuu.  
  
The sound of a chime told him that they had reached the floor they were heading. Ruki hurriedly brushed off the depressing thoughts in his head. Bitterly, he stared at the elevator door that was opening slowly. His legs felt like lead, too heavy for him to move, but he saw that Reita had already moved ahead. He heard his junior mumble, “Must be nice living in a place that has an elevator…”  
  
Ruki gave himself a mental push before he followed Reita out of the elevator. “Number 612,” he told Reita Yuu’s apartment number. The blonde man nodded, and then marched ahead with easy steps.  
  
Very soon, they arrived in front of Yuu’s door. Ruki glared at the white-painted, smooth-surfaced door; doubt hanging heavily in his mind. He knew, though, that he couldn’t turn back now. He had only one choice, which was to move forward and make sure he focused on his job. The sooner he got this over with, the sooner he could be free from this pressure in his head.  
  
His hand was tense when he pressed the bell. Not long afterward, the door opened, and the actor’s bright face appeared from behind.  
  
“Good evening, Ruki-san!” he greeted. And when he saw Reita who was standing right next to Ruki, he tilted his head and asked, “I don’t think we’ve met before…?”  
  
Reita offered his hand. “No, we haven’t,” he said. “I’m called Reita. I’m working under the same division as Ruki.”  
  
“Oh!” Yuu shook Reita’s hand, smiling. “Reita-san, pleased to meet you. Come on in!”  
  
Yuu opened his door wider, and stepped aside to let Ruki and Reita in. Ruki didn’t spend too much time wandering around since he had been here just the other day; he went straightly into the living room, and then, clueless of what to do, he sat down on the sofa, hanging on to his bag like a lost kid. In the mean time, his associate, Reita was giving himself a tour around the room. He stopped in front of a desk right next to the window, staring at the photos in different shaped frames that were displayed on top of it.  
  
“Wow,” Reita murmured. “You still have photos from elementary school days.”  
  
Yuu approached where Reita was standing. “Yeah,” he said. “I like that photo. Our baseball team had just won inter-school tournament.”  
  
Ruki could only sit in silence, watching Reita who didn’t seem like he was having a hard time getting acquainted with Yuu, as if this wasn’t their first meeting. Ruki wouldn’t have been able to do that; he couldn’t even come up with a topic to start any conversation with Yuu, even though they had met a couple of times before. But, then again, maybe this had a lot to do with the fact that he was still thinking about his high school days where Yuu had been his senior. The memory was still making things awkward, at least for him. It might have been better if he had never known Yuu before in the past… especially because it seemed that Yuu didn’t remember him at all.  
  
Finally, he took a deep breath, and then set his bag aside. He coughed lightly, getting Yuu and Reita’s attention. “Umm, sorry for interrupting your conversation, but…” he looked at Reita, “Reita, if you would…”  
  
Reita grinned sheepishly, nodding his head. “Okay, okay. Err… Yuu-san, can you show me your room? I’d like to start observing there.”  
  
“Alright,” Yuu smiled. “Right this way.”

  
===

  
The inspection that Reita did in Yuu’s room took only fifteen minutes, not a minute longer than that. Watched by Ruki and Yuu, Reita stood in the middle of the room, spinning on his heels slowly, taking in the view of every crevice and every nook he could find. His forehead creased every once in a while, but he said nothing. Sometimes he walked a few steps towards some objects, like the TV rack, the window that headed out to the balcony, and the room that Yuu was using as storage for the many gifts he received from his fans. But in the end, he shrugged at Ruki.  
  
“Nothing’s weird,” he said. “Except for that _yuurei_ sitting on your balcony.”  
  
Yuu turned to look at his balcony, but of course he couldn’t see anything with his bare eyes. Ruki couldn’t see a damn thing himself.  
  
“Oh, don’t worry,” Reita waved his hand. “She means no harm, and she’s not staying either. I think she’s just passing by.”  
  
Yuu was still staring warily at his balcony, as if he was expecting that _yuurei_ to appear all of a sudden, solid and clear. “O-okay… so, other than her, you don’t find anything else that seems dangerous?” he asked.  
  
Reita shook his head. “Not that I know of. Here, hang on a sec…” He reached into his jacket, and then into his jeans pockets, and finally pulled out a folded piece of white paper. He handed it to Yuu. “It’s an _ofuda_ for basic protection. Pretty useful to get rid of weak spirits. You can stick it on the door, the window, or any other spots that are strategic as passageways.”  
  
Ruki could see that Yuu was impressed. Anyone would have been awed to find out that Reita, whose appearance was so modern—even leaning toward reckless, knew so much about charms and spells and the sort. Physically Reita looked far away from what people used to think about priests who worked in the temples, but in terms of skills, he could not be underestimated. Once again Ruki had to admit that, although he felt bitter about it.  
  
Yuu held the _ofuda_ he received from Reita with utmost care, and then he walked towards the door that connected his bedroom with the living room. “Is it okay to place this here?” he asked, pointing at the door right in front of him.  
  
Reita nodded. “That’ll be okay. If you’re still experiencing any disturbance tonight, I can bring more tomorrow. My uncle told me to make loads of it this morning.”

  
===

  
Around eight p.m., the _ofuda_ was securely stuck on Yuu’s bedroom door, and Reita had left the apartment. Yuu had insisted that Reita stayed for a while for dinner, which consisted of nothing more than two boxes of pizza that he had ordered on the phone. Now there were only Ruki and Yuu left in the apartment, and Ruki, pathetically, was trying to convince himself that everything was going to be okay. But so far it seemed like the situation was completely fine, although he and Yuu hadn’t talked a lot tonight; before Reita came home, Reita had been the one who started most of the conversations. Ruki had only been able to jump in a few times with his trivial comments.  
  
At the moment, Ruki was sitting on the edge of a light-brown sheeted bed in Yuu’s guest bedroom, staring curiously at all the furniture around him. There really wasn’t much to see in this room, to tell the truth, compared to Yuu’s room which was full of posters and personal belongings that could speak a lot about its owner. In here, he could only find the usual, standard furniture that one would have in a bedroom; nothing special. Ruki didn’t think Yuu often received guests who stayed over and required a bedroom in this apartment.  
  
What about a girlfriend…? Ruki wondered if Yuu had any girlfriend who visited his place sometimes. And if he did, would Ruki be a nuisance by staying here?  
  
He sighed uncomfortably. The thought made him wish something would just happen tonight, so that he could get straight to work. The sooner that damn creature showed itself, the sooner he could finish his job and go home.  
  
“Ruki-kun!” Yuu’s voice and his cheerful smile appeared from behind the door, shocking Ruki until he nearly toppled off the bed. “Ruki-kun, I’m going to take a bath,” he said. “You go ahead and grab anything you want. Everything in the fridge is all yours, in case you’re still hungry. Or if you’d like to take a bath too, the guest bathroom is right next to the kitchen. Relax; I’ve already cleaned it up earlier today.”  
  
“O-oh, yes, thanks. Err… I’m just going to sort out my things for now.”  
  
“Okay,” Yuu said. “See you later, then.”  
  
Yuu disappeared from the doorframe, leaving Ruki agape, his hand clutching his chest. His heart was beating fast, although he had no idea whether it was just from the shock or some other reason he could not explain. Jadedly, he thought about how this was only the first night. How was he going to survive this task?

  
===

  
It turned out that Ruki didn’t have to wait too long to get what he had wished for, although it wasn’t quite like what he had imagined. He was in the middle of rummaging through the contents of his bag, searching for his toothbrush and towel. He planned to end the day with a nice hot bath and go straight to bed; it had been quite a stressing day, both physically and mentally. He had only found his towel and was on the process of continuing the search for his toothbrush when, all of a sudden, Yuu barged into the room. Ruki’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. If only Yuu hadn’t been almost naked with just a piece of towel covering his waist and most private parts, he wouldn’t have been this shocked.  
  
It was obvious that Yuu hadn’t had the chance to even dry himself before he left the bathroom. His hair was still dripping with water, streaming down his bare chest and stomach. He was panting as he was standing before Ruki’s bedroom door; his face was as pale as the white walls around them.  
  
Something had just happened. With every piece of willpower he owned, Ruki struggled to ignore the fact that Yuu was practically nude in front of his eyes, grabbed the jacket he had been wearing this afternoon from the desk, and hurried over towards the actor.  
  
“In the bathroom…” Yuu was stuttering. “There—there—”  
  
“What is it?” Ruki asked, rushing to cover Yuu’s body with his jacket. Yuu immediately pulled the jacket tightly around himself, shivering. “Come on, sit down,” he pulled Yuu towards the bed. And once he was certain that Yuu was sitting safely and seemed a little bit calmer, he asked him one more time. “What happened in the bathroom, Yuu?”  
  
Yuu took his moment to breathe, the shiver that ran through his body easing bit by bit. Soon, he could speak more clearly than before. “Nothing was weird, at first,” he began. “Everything was plainly normal. I was just waiting for the tub to be filled with warm water while doing… well, the routine, you know. And then I stepped into the bathtub.”  
  
Sitting right next to Yuu at the edge of the bed, Ruki was staring at the dark haired man, waiting for him to continue with his story.  
  
“A couple of minutes in the tub, I felt like…” Yuu frowned, pausing to think. “… I felt like there’s someone in the room, staring at me. You know the feeling, don’t you, that disconcerting feeling at the edge of your conscience when someone is close by? I was having the creeps, but everywhere I looked, there was no one around. I was in the bathroom all by myself.  
  
“The feeling didn’t go away even after a while. Feeling discomforted, I cancelled my intention of staying in the bath for long. I stood up and walked toward the sink, wanted to brush my teeth. That’s when I felt… someone was breathing right next to me.”  
  
Yuu touched his own nape as if he could still feel the uninvited creature nearby. Ruki cautiously looked over Yuu’s shoulder to check, but there was no one there. His supernatural sense was not exactly a treat he could be proud of, unlike that of Reita’s or the staffs in Astral Aura Detection Division. But all the years he had been working in PSC had given him enough experience that slowly sharpened his instincts. He could at least tell when there was a creature from another dimension hovering nearby. And with this sadly poor instinct of his, he didn’t think there was anyone—or anything else in the room except himself and Yuu.  
  
“And then…?” Ruki asked carefully. He didn’t know how traumatic it was, but he needed to find out what had just happened to Yuu.  
  
“And then…” Yuu continued slowly. “I tried to ignore… whatever it was. I was still trying to convince myself that it was just in my head. But of course that’s not the case. Right in front of the sink I was standing, brushing my teeth as fast as I could. And the next thing I knew… that thing was touching my back.”  
  
Yuu stopped speaking for a moment, the shiver returned in full force. Ruki patted his arm awkwardly. He was never good in soothing other people in need. Not to mention this was Yuu who was sitting, shuddering right next to him; and to make matters a lot worse, Yuu was not properly dressed. Ruki wanted to get up and find something for Yuu to wear, but he wasn’t sure he could leave Yuu alone under this circumstance.  
  
A few moments later, Yuu opened his mouth again to speak.  
  
“Whatever that thing was… its touch felt eerie. It slid down from my nape to my lower back. I could only stand there, praying so that the creature would stop soon and leave me alone. I didn’t get what I prayed for. It was only getting worse. The touch then turned into a hug.”  
  
“A hug?!” Ruki gasped, horrified.  
  
Yuu nodded. “I could feel something similar to a pair of hands… arms. They surrounded me, hugging me. And then…” He closed his eyes; his lips trembled. “That breath… it was warm, like a human’s breath. It was as if someone was standing so close to me and had their face pressed to my cheek, and inhaled, exhaled. Inhaled, exhaled, over and over again. And then it spoke to me.”  
  
“What did it say…?”  
  
Before he answered, Yuu turned his gaze towards Ruki. The look in those eyes told Ruki that he should start fearing for his own safety from now on. “It said… ‘Get rid of your guest. Or I will make him suffer for intruding.’”

  
===

  
When Yuu finally fell deeply asleep, the clock was showing two a.m. late in the night. He had tossed and turned for many times; kept waking up even before being truly asleep. Ruki sighed, relieved. He himself couldn’t sleep, too tense from everything that Yuu had experienced. He was also aware that, as the person in charge of the surveillance, he had to make sure Yuu was safe and nothing else was going to disturb him tonight.  
  
The main lamp in Yuu’s room was turned on, blindingly bright. Yuu had declined Ruki’s offer to turn it off, although, honestly speaking, the light wouldn’t have helped if the creature had decided to show up in this room. But Ruki understood the common suggestion that light brought a sense of peace. So if that was what Yuu needed, then Ruki would let the lights turned on all night long.  
  
The big problem was that Ruki couldn’t leave Yuu. He had repeatedly told him that he wouldn’t be too far away. He would only be a few steps away in the living room; if Yuu wanted he could keep his bedroom door ajar so he could still see Ruki from inside. But Yuu had promptly refused. He had gone all the way to turning the contents of his closet upside down just to find a spare _futon_ , a blanket and a pillow for Ruki to use. Ruki could no longer insist about leaving the room once he had seen Yuu spreading the _futon_ on the floor right next to his own bed.  
  
Who would have thought that an actor of Aoi’s level turned out to be a big coward? No one, including Ruki, would expect that the man behind all those hot-shot, daredevil characters on the screen was such a wuss.  
  
Nonetheless, he was grateful now. It seemed that, despite the threat that the creature had said to Yuu, the disturbances had ended for tonight. Or maybe the ofuda from Reita was working effectively, so nothing unwanted could get into this room. Ruki needed to thank that guy… tomorrow, maybe, and only if Reita didn’t do anything that might possibly ruin his mood.  
  
At the moment, though, he had to contact someone else, and he needed to make the call soon.  
  
Ruki stood up from the _futon_ slowly, careful not to wake Yuu. He walked out onto the balcony, and then pulled out his cellphone. Within a few seconds, he was connected to the person he meant to talk to.  
  
“Night, Uruha. Yes. Morning, I know. Sorry. But this is urgent. Yes. Can you come here tomorrow? Yeah, Shiroyama Yuu’s apartment. Early—okay, as early as you can make it. This might be even worse than we suspected. I’m going to call Reita and ask him to come too. Okay. Yes, yes, go back to sleep. See you later.”  
  
Hanging up the phone, Ruki took a deep breath. He really shouldn’t have said yes to this assignment.  
  


**\- TO BE CONTINUED -**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ofuda = a type of household amulet or talisman, issued by a Shinto shrine, hung in the house for protection  
> yuurei = ghost  
> futon = traditional style of Japanese bedding


	9. Chapter 9

“I’m sure he’ll call you soon, Kai,” Uruha said, steering his car into the apartment complex’s parking lot. The large concrete yard was rather deserted this morning; there were only two other cars beside Uruha’s parked near the building. By the looks of it, those might not be the occupants’ vehicles. There must be an underground parking facility to stash all the expensive, fancy cars that belonged to the people who were living in this complex.  
  
Uruha parked his own car on an empty space—shaded under the shadows cast by the apartment buildings—and stepped out. He pocketed his car keys, shouldered his bag, and continued to listen patiently to Kai’s high-pitched complaints on the phone.  
  
“I don’t know,” Uruha spoke up once Kai stopped long enough to allow him to talk. “Yes, I understand that he should have called you first. I’m sure he has his own reason. He said it’s an emergency. I don’t know what it is. No, seriously, Kai, I don’t know.”  
  
His footsteps took him across the parking lot, all the way toward the main building’s entrance. The door had a simple but futuristic design—all grey and white—that, he personally thought, looked rather cold and harsh. If it was meant to scare people away, it was doing its purpose very well.  
  
“Okay. Okay. Yes, I’ll tell him. I won’t forget. Yes. I’ve got to go now, Kai. Okay. See you later. And, oh—” Uruha grinned, “—I might need a large cup of cold latte once I arrive at the office.”  
  
Uruha ended the call with a sigh. If he had known Ruki hadn’t contacted Kai, he wouldn’t have called the worrywart. It was unusual that Ruki had called Uruha first before saying anything to Kai—the stick-to-the-procedure type of man that he was—but he must have had his reason. And Uruha would find out what that reason was… soon.  
  
Standing in the lobby, looking as if he hadn’t had any sleep, was Ruki. Uruha greeted him, which was replied with a weak nod and a tired smile.  
  
“I thought you’d gone back to sleep after you hung up,” he said. “Come on. I need some help upstairs.”

 

  
***

  
The inside of Yuu’s apartment was a lot cozier and friendlier than the building’s façade that Uruha had seen outside. The interior was mostly black and white, with simple but personal little decorations installed on the most eye-catching places. It wasn’t really fancy, different from what Uruha had thought before entering the apartment. He had imagined a celebrity like Yuu would have been living in a luxurious place—a place like those that Uruha had only seen on TV shows—but this was rather normal. He could actually believe that he was standing in the middle of an apartment next door from where he lived.  
  
“He just woke up,” Ruki said. Uruha turned to see his colleague walking out of a room—probably Yuu’s bedroom.  
  
“Are you sure it’s okay to invite me here without his permission?” Uruha asked.  
  
Ruki shrugged. “It’s an emergency. I’m sure he won’t mind, especially after what happened last night.”  
  
“So what exactly happened last night? You haven’t told me anything yet.” Uruha walked slowly around what he thought to be the living room—pristine white sofas and black mahogany tables and tall, black book shelves—admiring what he was seeing. His senses were calm; nothing seemed out of the ordinary.  
  
“Something attacked him again,” Ruki answered, dropping himself heavily on one of the sofas. “It happened when he was in the bathroom, taking a shower. The creature touched him, and…”  
  
The pause made Uruha turn. “And?”  
  
“And it actually threatened me.”  
  
“Threatened you? How?” Uruha approached the sofa and sat down next to Ruki.  
  
This was not a very pleasant update. Not only that the creature could communicate clearly, it could also make physical contact and was totally aware of everything around it. But then it didn’t have the kind of aura that they could detect. The guys from Astral Aura Detection couldn’t sense anything when they were here. What was it exactly they were dealing with? The more Uruha heard about it, the more worried he became.  
  
“It—”  
  
Both Ruki and Uruha looked up when they caught sight of a black haired man walking out of a room. It was Yuu, and he looked absolutely disheveled; messy bed hair, pale face, and a pair of dark circles around his eyes. He looked like he hadn’t had a very good sleep—and that might have been the case, if what Ruki had just told him was accurate. However, when the man noticed Ruki and Uruha sitting in his living room, he smiled.  
  
“Good morning,” he said. “Sorry I just woke up.”  
  
Uruha stood up and walked across the room. Upon approaching the actor, he offered his hand. “That’s fine,” he said, grinning when Yuu shook his hand. “I swear you look a hundred times better than I do when I wake up in the morning.”  
  
After some brief chit-chat, and after letting Yuu clean himself up a bit, the three of them were sitting in the living room; now with three cups of coffee on the table between them. Uruha breathed in the delicious vapor wafting from the cups, and felt slightly happier than a few moments ago.  
  
Ruki had just asked Yuu to explain what had happened to him last night, and now the man was telling Uruha all the creepy little details. It sounded almost like a part from a horror movie, only this was for real. Yuu seemed genuinely scared, like any other people who wasn’t used to experiencing contact with ‘the others’.  
  
Uruha understood why Yuu felt so intimidated. An encounter with creatures from the other world could be horrifying, even traumatizing if it was happening to a common person who had never had experienced anything like it before. Uruha himself had been dealing with supernatural things ever since he had started becoming aware of his surroundings. So, quite reasonably, he had gotten totally used to creatures popping in and out of his sight. The ability to converse to them had come a bit later, when he was eight years old. Back then one of his neighbors had died, and the morning after his funeral, Uruha had sat on his porch, thoughtlessly called out his dead neighbor. The man had appeared almost immediately—half-solid, half-smoke—and they had talked about a lot of things Uruha had hardly understood back then. And then he had left his last message, which was for Uruha to take care of his little spaniel dog, and once Uruha had agreed to do it, he had disappeared.  
  
The little spaniel dog’s name was Jiro, and every single afternoon it would sat on the porch, staring straight ahead, as if waiting for its master to come home.  
  
The same thing happened quite regularly after that, although Uruha had learned well not to boast his ability to anyone. He knew that the ability to see ghosts, let alone talk to them, was seen as weird, maybe even creepy among regular people. He had tried to live normally, to act like he hadn’t been seeing dead people float by around him and talking to him. But then he got signed into PSC where everyone was so familiar with anything supernatural, and all of a sudden his ability didn’t seem so weird anymore—and he could even make a living out of it.  
  
But back to the matter at hand; considering just how inexperienced Yuu was in supernatural things, and bearing in mind that this entity they were dealing with seemed to be an aggressive kind, Uruha knew they had to be careful. And on top of that, they had to hurry. If what Yuu had just told them was true, then this entity had a high tendency of becoming desperate and even violent. The last thing they would ever want was to have one of Japan’s top leading famous actors getting hurt by something unexplainable.  
  
“Okay, so,” Uruha turned toward Ruki, “basically you want me to try summoning this creature. But to be honest, Ruki, I can’t sense anything right now—at least any creature that may seem violent.”  
  
“I know that, Reita and Hiroto told me the same thing,” Ruki said. He was holding his coffee cup so close to his nose as if he was revering it. “I’m just wondering, Uruha. If it’s not possible to summon the culprit itself, can you summon something else, some other creature around here that might tell us what we need to know?”  
  
Uruha took one moment thinking about Ruki’s suggestion. “Hmm…” he murmured afterwards. “I think that’s a good idea. Yeah, I think we can do that. You better cross your fingers and pray there’s going to be someone who will talk.”

 

  
***

  
Around half an hour later, Uruha had grabbed his bag, and everyone had moved into Yuu’s bedroom. Uruha was sitting on the floor, spreading his tools in front of him. Yuu was standing on the side staring Uruha’s equipments, profoundly fascinated.  
  
“Will it be dangerous?” he asked, eyeing the _haraigushi_ that Uruha had just pulled out of his bag.  
  
Uruha shook his head, grinning. “Not if I can help it,” he said. “But just in case, I’ll set up the protection circle. This circle will act as a cage for the creature during the summoning, making sure it doesn’t run around uncontrolled. At the moment I don’t have the material to build an actual protection circle, but I can make do with salt. It’s not conventional, I know, but it’s all I’ve got. Do you mind if I sprinkle some salt on your floor? I’ll make sure to clean it up later after the whole ritual is done.”  
  
Yuu shrugged. “Go ahead. Don’t worry about it.”  
  
With practiced ease, Uruha reached toward a plastic jar that he carried everywhere with him, opened its cap and grabbed a handful of salt. He sprinkled it in a circular motion around himself, creating a white circle made out of salt with a diameter of around two feet. He made sure that there was no hole in the circle, so that whatever was trapped inside could not escape. Once that was done, he pulled out a yellow piece of paper and placed it in the middle of the circle he had just made.  
  
“Oh, an _ofuda_ ,” Yuu pointed. “Like the ones Reita gave me.”  
  
“Right,” Uruha said, stepping out of the circle. “But not quite similar. This one right here is not an _ofuda_ to repel supernatural creatures. On the contrary, it attracts them.”  
  
The next minute, everything was set. Yuu and Ruki were sitting on the floor on a little distance—just to be safe; no matter how prepared Uruha was, he couldn’t guarantee an evil entity would not make its appearance. It was a bit unfortunate that Ruki hadn’t called Reita too, because if he had come as well, there would have been someone else who could protect Ruki and Yuu if anything bad happened. But there was no helping; Uruha was all by himself, so he would have to do his best and pray everything would go as planned.  
  
Uruha held his _haraigushi_ tightly in his right hand, took a deep breath, and started mumbling his usual summoning chant. As soon as he began, the temperature in the room took a slight drop. The curtains swayed slightly as though wind was blowing, but the windows were closed. Uruha stood calmly, continuing his chant, faster and louder by the minute. And then something appeared.  
  
It was like a puff of smoke at first, materializing in the middle of Uruha’s protection circle. Its form was slowly taking shape into a person’s—a woman’s. She was wearing a simple one-piece dress; she had shoulder-length hair, beautiful face, and a bloody gaping hole in the middle of her chest. Uruha could hear Yuu’s shocked gasp at the sight, but he himself kept his cool and tried not to stare at the gruesome wound. It must have been the cause of her death, but Uruha knew better than to ask her about it. His life-long experience had taught him that not all spirits liked to be asked about how they had died.  
  
The woman was hovering inside the circle; her hair floating around her white face, and her black eyes were fixed on Uruha. She looked tormented and miserable, but she didn’t seem to be menacing.  
  
Her mouth was almost still when she spoke, and her voice sounded like a whisper of cold wind softly blowing against the dried grasses. “Who brought me here?”  
  
Uruha gripped his _haraigushi_ a little tighter. “I’m sorry for disturbing you,” he apologized first. It’s always best to apologize to spirits before trying to get information from them; he had, after all, ‘kidnapped’ them from their restless wandering.  
  
“I’ll only be asking you a couple of questions, and then you’re free to go your own way.”  
  
He would have offered her salvation if only he had the abilities to, but he hadn’t. That would be a job for Shou or Reno or any other guys in the Exorcism section.  
  
“Are you a resident in this place?” The first question.  
  
Her gaze flickered toward the window for a second. “No. Here sometimes, down there on the streets sometimes. Other places, too. I don’t linger anywhere.”  
  
A passer-by, Uruha thought. He hoped she had been passing by Yuu’s apartment often enough to be able to provide a helpful answer.  
  
“When was the last time you visited this apartment?” was Uruha’s next question.  
  
“A few nights ago,” she answered.  
  
“When you were here, did you see anyone else? Another otherworldly presence?”  
  
“Several… some other that don’t linger like me,” she answered.  
  
“Have you seen any of them interacting with the owner of this apartment? With him?” Uruha pointed toward Yuu on his right.  
  
The female spirit turned her head around languidly as if she was moving on slow motion, until her gaze fell upon Yuu. Yuu looked nervous, but to Uruha’s relief, he stayed put and courageously stared back as the spirit eyed him.  
  
“No,” she answered after a moment. “None of us… none of us…”  
  
Uruha frowned. “What do you mean none of you?”  
  
“None of us…” she said again, turning her attention elsewhere again. Sunlight streaming from the window shone into the room; streaks of light beamed through the spirit’s body, giving the impression that she was fading bit by bit.  
  
“So… you’re saying there is someone else?” Uruha pressed on. “Who is it?”  
  
“None of us… None of us…” she kept repeating with a vacant expression on her face, as if she was losing interest in the conversation. Well, that might be true, since she had been dragged here by force. Spirits, just like living beings, had their own businesses that they had to attend to.  
  
Uruha sighed. “Alright then, thanks for your help.”  
  
Thinking that this woman’s spirit couldn’t be of much help, he stepped forward to commence the releasing ritual. He looked up to her black eyes and softly whispered, “I now release you from this circle. Be at peace.”  Then, with the tip of his toes he swept a small hole on the protection circle.  
  
The woman turned back into a gust of smoke that seemed to be sucked out by an invisible force outside the circle. Uruha was just about to kneel down to pull his _ofuda_ off of the floor, but before the apparition completely disappeared, she spoke.  
  
“Fear not of the dead, but the living.”  
  
All three men were silent as the room returned to normal. The voice of the female ghost lingered in the air among them—eerie, haunting, and most of all, confusing.

 

  
**\- TO BE CONTINUED -**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * haraigushi = Purification wand. A wooden stick up to a metre long with streamers of white paper and/or flax attached to the end.   
> * The summoning method mentioned in this chapter is only fictional, completely made-up, of course, because I have no idea what kind of ritual is used to summon spirits.


	10. Chapter 10

“Shou, try not to look like you’re having too much fun in there.”  
  
Kai stepped back and sat down on his chair without turning off the intercom between two rooms. There were sounds coming from the room across the one-way mirror, sounds that were actually getting to his nerves, but Kai knew he had to keep his ears open to the very end. Never in his life had he heard such mean cuss words, moreover coming from an old lady. Well, at least in common people’s eyes, she would appear just like a frail old lady—probably eighty years old, looking like a normal grandma you would meet every day on the sidewalk. But Kai knew better. Underneath the old lady disguise, there was a huge demon with a face that looked a lot like a Rottweiler, sickly green skin, and six slimy eyes. And this demon seemed really fond of cussing, to the point of adding the rudest cuss words in its every single sentence, regardless how ridiculous it would sound sometimes.  
  
But Shou didn’t seem like he was bothered by any of it. Standing in front of the demon-granny, he was smiling brightly as if someone was taking a picture of him. He was holding a glass filled with water—not just any water, actually; it was Holy Water. The institution stashed a whole tank of it in the basement for general use, especially exorcism and purification. Most of these tasks were usually done in the room just behind the one-way mirror, a room they liked to call the ‘Laundry Room’, since that’s where the staff did ‘cleanse’ things, including living beings and dead objects, from evil spirits.  
  
“What are you talking about, Kai?” Shou said. “I’m having a really hard time here. Can’t you see how painful it is for my innocent ears to have to listen to what this ugly hag is saying?”  
  
Kai wanted to answer, no; he couldn’t see what Shou meant at because, with that smile upon his face, the Exorcist might as well be listening to kids singing Christmas Carols. But instead, he said, “Just get the job done already, Shou. We have other work to do.”  
  
Shou shrugged. “Okay, Boss.”  
  
The demon-granny screamed another long string of profanities just before Shou sprinkled a handful of Holy Water onto its face. Kai kept watching, cringing every once in a while as the demon twisted and writhed all the way through Shou’s exorcism process.  
  
Kai turned around from the hideous scene only when he felt a pat on his shoulder. Uruha’s grin filled his sight in an instant.  
  
“Hey, there,” greeted the séance expert. He offered a glass of tea—Kai’s favorite chamomile tea, judging from the aroma—which Kai very gladly accepted. “You look preoccupied,” Uruha said, eyeing the view through the one-way mirror.  
  
“Hey,” Kai sighed. “Yeah, we’ve just caught it earlier this morning. It’s the creature that has been making a ruckus in the department store down the block.”  
  
“Oh, I’ve heard of that. People thought it was a bunch of young thugs making a scene.”  
  
Kai nodded. “Yes, well, it’s a thug alright. Only it’s a supernatural one rather than natural.” He motioned toward the one-way mirror. “And it can disguise itself pretty well. Who would ever suspect a gentle looking old lady like that pushing groceries off the racks, tackling people down, and messing up with the register machines?”  
  
“She’s possessed?” Uruha stood behind Kai’s chair, one hand on Kai’s shoulder.  
  
“Yes, Shou said it’s a young demon—probably sixty, seventy years old—and pretty inexperienced in the matter of possessing people,” Kai said. “It’ll be done really soon.”  
  
“Poor old lady will be so sore once it’s out of her.”  
  
Kai agreed quietly. He himself had experienced being possessed once when he was just a kid. It was just a stray spirit and Kai had only been at the wrong place and the wrong time, but back then nobody knew what was going on, let alone expelling it from Kai’s body. It had stayed for about a week inside of him, and when—after some lucky coincidence when Kai bumped into a priest on his way to school—it had finally left him, he had felt like he’d been hit by a car. He hadn’t even been able to get up from his bed for three whole days.  
  
“Oh right, Ayame just told me you’re holding up a meeting after this is done,” Uruha mumbled with his lips pressed against the ridge of his own cup, as if giving it a long, sweet kiss. He had a blissful expression on his face when he sipped his drink bit by bit—it must have been a rather awful morning for him, too.  
  
“I am, actually,” Kai answered. “We need to talk about what happened at Yuu’s last night. Both you and Ruki have some explaining to do.”  
  
The demon inside the Laundry Room gargled something inaudible.  
  
“Shou, get your foot off of the old lady’s stomach!” Kai shouted. “Anyway, as I was saying, we have to get to the bottom of this, and fast.”  
  
“Well, to be honest, I haven’t got much to explain,” Uruha said. “The spirit didn’t tell us a lot. Seriously, I hate meeting ghosts that act all mysterious. I mean, how are we supposed to understand what they want if they give us nothing to work with but confusing, nonsensical babblings?”  
  
“The staff might have some idea, but my point is we need to review everything that has happened last night. This case is getting weirder and weirder…”  
  
All of a sudden the intercom became quiet. When Kai looked through the one-way mirror, the exorcism was over. It was done fairly quickly, just as Kai had expected. The old lady slumped on the chair, unconscious. Shou placed his bottle of Holy Water on the table, clapped his hands twice as if he was praying in a shrine, smiled, and muttered, “All done.”

 

***

  
At 2 p.m., all the staff members who had been involved in Yuu’s case from the beginning were gathered in the meeting room. Kai was sitting on his chair with another cup of chamomile tea on the table. Sitting on his right was his assistant, Ruki, and he looked as if he would faint any second now. When he arrived at the office earlier this morning Kai honestly thought he looked like a zombie. Kai had seen zombies, quite a few times, in fact, in his position as the head of Department of Investigation and Recovery, so he hadn’t been exaggerating too much. Kai understood that Ruki needed to rest—the look on his face obviously showed that he hadn’t had any sleep since last night—but the sooner they figured out what they should do, the sooner they could go home and get all the rest they wanted.  
  
Reita was the last person who walked in just before Kai started the meeting. The man stumbled into the room, nearly knocked down a chair on his way, grinned wide, and sat down with as much noise an elephant would make.  
  
“Okay, so,” Kai sighed, suppressing the urge to knock Reita’s head with an ashtray. “I’ll go straight to the point. We’re here to discuss about what happened last night at our client’s apartment. Ruki and Uruha will tell us in detail about their experience. After they are done with their explanation, I hope each and every one of you can contribute your ideas. And then from there we are going to decide what we should do next.”  
  
Ruki and Uruha took turns speaking—Ruki yawning through most of his story—and once they were finished, the room was full of grim looking people. Ayame was the first to break the silence, uncertainty thick in her voice.  
  
“Okay, so basically, if what that spirit told you was true, then we’re dealing with a living person,” she said slowly. “If that’s the case, then we can forget using exorcism or any other cleansing method for demons or souls of the dead.”  
  
“Exactly,” Shou added. “No amount of Holy Water or exorcism prayers can harm an untainted living person.”  
  
Kai sipped the last drop of his tea, nodding gravely. Ruki and Uruha’s stories forced him to think twice about practically everything. All the strategies he had thought of before seemed useless now that they were told a living person was behind all those disturbances. The first thing that came up in Kai’s mind was a jinx, but so far his staff hadn’t found any object that was strong enough to cause too much harm. But if it wasn’t a jinx, what else could it be?  
  
He hated to admit it, but he was running out of ideas.  
  
“Okay,” he said then. “I want all of you to let me know what you’re thinking. Whatever it is, just tell me—it can even be your wildest idea, I don’t mind. I’m all ears right now.”  
  
“‘ _Fear not of the dead, but of the living_ ’…” Ayame mused. “The spirit didn’t really specify ‘the living’ as a human being, right? What if it’s something else, a [yokai](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y%C5%8Dkai) maybe?”  
  
From across the desk, Hiroto shook his head. “No, no, no. I saw nothing that looked like a yokai, not even traces of it.”  
  
“You could have missed looking at a few spots. And some yokais are pretty good at covering their traces.”  
  
“I haven’t missed—”  
  
“Hiroto’s right,” Reita piped in. “I didn’t sense anything weird when I was there. Well, not in the level of a yokai at least. A few passing spirits, that’s all, and none of them were dangerous.”  
  
Ayame looked at Reita, shrugged, and said, “It’s still an idea.”  
  
Reita grinned at her goofily, and then suddenly his face lit up. “Hey, it might be a [Shikigami](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shikigami)! It’s controlled by a living person, and it is capable of hurting people physically depends on the commands it received.”  
  
“Oh!” Uruha exclaimed. “That actually makes sense. But Shikigami… wow, man. That takes a lot of skill.”  
  
Reita nodded, agreeing. “Right, to be able to create a Shikigami, to manipulate it and make it do things—hurting people, for instance—needs some serious ability and years of experience. If you’re not careful, the Shikigami might go out of control.”  
  
“Yes, there is a long history of people getting killed in their attempt to control a Shikigami,” Kai said. He recalled several cases that he had handled in the past that was related to Shikigami; most of them ended tragically, with the master-wannabe getting mauled and ripped apart by the creatures they intended to control. The result was never a pretty sight, and it was always a hard work for Kai’s team. And after all that mess, there was still the matter of catching the rampant Shikigami…  
  
“Wait, wait,” Hiroto cut off, “I went with the team that was dispatched to deal with a Shikigami three months ago. The container medium was wrecked to pieces, but I could still see some residual aura around it. If the thing that was bothering Yuu had been a Shikigami, then I would have seen traces of it as well.”  
  
Hearing Hiroto speak, the small hope that had emerged in Kai’s mind sank right back into the pit of desperation. But he couldn’t blame Hiroto for being such a party spoiler, because what he just said was right; if there had been a Shikigami, he would have easily discovered its aura, or at least what’s left of it. The man might be young and slightly reckless, but his eyesight had never failed them when they were out on duty.  
  
“You’ve got a point, Hiroto,” Kai said. “However, I’m still going to note this down. We need to investigate every possibility that we can think of.”  
  
The meeting continued for another hour, in which Ruki dozed through most of it and Kai got himself another cup of tea. Several other ideas were thrown into the discussion, such as [tanuki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanuki) (although it would take a lot to bribe a tanuki to make it do something against its will), [bakemono](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obake), a [zashiki warashi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zashiki-warashi) (not very likely; zashiki warashi were usually very friendly, except toward people who never cleaned up their houses), and all kinds of yokai that everyone could think of.  
  
They were in the middle of arguing about witches and hexes when Kai finally felt he had enough. This discussion would never reach the end since no one here actually knew what they were up against, not even the slightest clue of it.  
  
“Alright, alright,” Kai lifted his hands to silence his staff members. “Byou, stop it with the chant, you might actually curse someone with it if you go on.”  
  
Byou immediately stopped in the middle of muttering a nose-breaking hex, and the rest of the people in the room went quiet. With everyone’s eyes on him, Kai took a deep breath and spoke up.  
  
“Okay, I’ve been listening to all of your ideas. And based on our discussion, I’ve already written like two dozen possibilities—all of which are specifically difficult to handle. This is too random. We can go on with our guessing game but that’s not going to be very helpful, and it will take too much of our time. What we really have to do is further research.”  
  
“Well, Ruki is already on surveillance,” said Uruha. At the mention of his name, the said assistant spluttered awake from his snooze and lifted his head from the desk, blearily eyeing the entire room.  
  
“Yes, but so far the surveillance has been limited to only within Yuu’s apartment,” Kai laid out. “We need more information—about Yuu’s friends, colleagues; people with whom he works with. If we want to sort a list of suspects, then we have to figure out that much. Even if it ends up being a Shikigami, there’s someone behind it, and we need to find out who he or she is.”  
  
Kai turned to Ruki. The man seemed still half-asleep, because all he did was stare emptily at the desk. “Ruki, did you hear what I just said?” Kai asked.  
  
“Huh?”  
  
Kai sighed. “I was telling everyone here that we should intensify the surveillance on Yuu. Now, since you’re the one in charge of that task, I need you to keep your ears open for just a short moment and listen to me now, okay? Good.”

 

***

  
The afternoon was humid, with signs of rain hanging low in the skies outside the institute. It was only 4 p.m., but the darkness cast by the clouds made the atmosphere look like it was already sundown. The first roar of thunder rumbled across the skies just when Kai finished tidying up his desk. He exhaled heavily; it would be a slippery drive home, and not to mention he was planning to make a stop at the convenience store. Without the stop there would be no dinner, and he was getting very tired of eating delivery’s pizza. He had no choice.  
  
He plugged off the cable of his computer and stepped away from his desk. Maybe if he hurried he would make it home before the rain got too heavy.  
  
“Rough day, huh?”  
  
Kai looked up to find Uruha leaning on the doorway of his office, a big grin stretching on his face.  
  
“I’ve had worse,” Kai smirked at Uruha. He shouldered his bag and was just about to walk out of the room when Uruha pointed toward his desk.  
  
“You’re going to leave your cellphone?” the séance expert said, chuckling.  
  
At that, Kai looked over his shoulder. It wasn’t a surprise that his cellphone was still on the desk, its charger cable right next to it. If Uruha hadn’t said a word then he would have neglected it—again, in fact, because he had forgotten his phone along with a lot of other things many times before.  
  
Laughing, Kai grabbed his phone and charger, and slipped them into his bag. “What would I do without you, Uruha?” he said, making his way toward Uruha.  
  
“You would probably be buying a new phone every month and get a dozen duplicates for your car keys,” Uruha said. “I suspect you might even forget your way home.”  
  
The two of them laughed, Uruha’s arm around Kai’s shoulder as they walked across the now empty office. Everybody else had gone home after the meeting. Kai still remembered the intimidated look on Ruki’s face when he got up from his seat; it was an intimidating task, even Kai had to admit, but Ruki was on duty and this was a part of his responsibility. Personally, Kai thought it would be good for Ruki to start hanging out with a totally different circle of people—God only knows how cooped up that guy was in his apartment, books, and work.  
  
Kai would probably send someone along too—probably Reita or Uruha—to make sure Ruki could keep himself in check. And the next thing he could do was pray that everything would go as planned.  
  
They stepped out of the building, and at once the breeze hit them. Uruha shivered slightly; he was only wearing a thin white shirt over his black t-shirt.  
  
 “I’m having nabe tonight, care to join?” Kai asked. “I mean, I still owe you the latte you asked me this morning, right? I totally forgot about that, so I’ll pay it back with dinner.”  
  
“Kai, did you just make a move on me?” Uruha laughed. “As a matter of fact, yes, I’d love to. You have no idea how bored I am with the ramen restaurant across the street.”  
  
“Tell me about it. I’ve been having take-outs and deliveries way too often my tongue is getting numb,” Kai shook his head. “Anyways, there are several things I’d like to discuss with you regarding Yuu’s case.”  
  
“Aww… we’re going to talk about work during our date?”  
  
Kai hoped he wasn’t blushing. “Oh, shush you.”  
  
They had reached the parking lot; Kai’s silver sedan was waiting silently on its usual spot. Uruha’s blue car was parked right behind it.  
  
“It’s about Ruki, actually. I’m getting a little doubtful that putting him in the assignment was a good idea after all,” Kai continued, reaching into his pocket for his car keys.  
  
“Oh?” One of Uruha’s perfect eyebrows arched upward. He seemed to be intrigued by what Kai just said. “What makes you think so?”  
  
A smile stretched on Kai’s face. “It’ll be easier to talk about it while facing a steaming hot pot of nabe,” he said. “Now come on before it rains. Oh, and you’re going to have to help me with the groceries.”

 

**\- TO BE CONTINUED -**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I inserted links to the names of creatures in the text (Wikipedia, as always... lol), you can click on them to read the explanation about what those are.


	11. Chapter 11

The movie title was ‘The Dead Whispers’. It might have been obvious from the title already, but it was basically a horror movie. The main character was a man, a script writer, who moved into an apartment. The intention to seclude himself—after his wife’s death and also as an attempt to regain his inspirations for his job—failed as soon as the haunting in the apartment began. A ghost of a female kept visiting him, scaring the daylights out of him no matter where he tried to hide. It turned out that the ghost was trying to tell him how she died and who did it, and to warn the man that he was also facing a deadly danger if he kept staying in the apartment.  
  
The story was laced with a tragic love story that inevitably happened between the man and the ghost, which gave it a rather nice twist as opposed to it being the same old, cliché horror movie.  
  
Ruki flipped the pages all the way to the last one, and read the ending scene. Well, it was a common ending for most horror movies, with no obvious conclusion, leaving the viewer with many possibilities to think of. Ruki himself was not a horror movie fan, so to say, but he thought he wouldn’t mind watching this one. Not just because Yuu was starring it, but because the story itself seemed interesting.  
  
“Well? How is it?”  
  
Ruki looked up from the script and found Yuu’s face in front of him, beaming with expectation. “Umm…” he began. “I’m not an expert in reviewing movies, but I think it will be interesting to watch.”  
  
“I thought you were going to say ironic,” Yuu replied, laughing lightly. “Or stupid… You know, considering that I am actually being haunted in real life, why on earth would I be taking this role? It might seem very unwise.”  
  
Ruki smiled. “Well, that crossed my mind too,” he said. “But on the contrary, I think it’s great that you’ve taken this role. It can be one of the ways to deal with your fears.”  
  
He closed the script book that he had been reading while they were on their way heading toward the studio, and handed it back to Yuu. Yuu accepted it with a lopsided smile on his lips.  
  
“I wish it was that simple,” he said. “The ghosts that I’m supposed to see in this movie, well, during the shooting at least, are touchable. I mean, I know the cast who plays the role—I talk to her every day, and she is such a nice person! It’s a bit difficult to be afraid of her.” He sighed, “But the one in my apartment… that’s something totally different.”  
  
Ruki nodded in silence, fully understanding the big difference between seeing the real thing and the fake ones. Some people could make really scary artificial apparitions to show on movies or photos, but no one could ever represent the coldness, the unwelcoming aura that real supernatural entities gave off.  
  
But on a positive note, he thought Yuu would be able to use his experience dealing with real supernatural entities—how the entire event had made him feel—and project that feeling in his acting for this movie. Yuu didn’t have to pretend much; he knew what the real thing was really like.  
  
Kazuki drove the car in which Yuu and Ruki were passengers into the basement parking lot of a large, terracotta painted building, and then stopped at an empty space. The three of them stepped out of the car, and with Kazuki leading the pack, walked into the building. Ruki soon found out that it was an apartment, a less luxurious one than the one where Yuu was living in. Doors after doors lined up on the walls on their left and right as they strutted along a brightly lit, pastel cream colored corridor. Ruki vaguely thought that this must be the apartment used as the setting of the movie shooting, and his guess was proven correct when Kazuki gave him a brief explanation.  
  
“We’re shooting on the fifth floor,” he said. “The team rented three apartments; one for the movie setting itself, one for wardrobe and equipment storage, and one for the technical crews. We’re lucky to find an apartment building that has more than one available space on the same floor like this, especially in the middle of Shibuya.”  
  
They proceeded into an elevator that took them to their destination floor, the fifth. Just like the first floor, there was nothing notable about the corridor. The walls were painted with the same pastel cream, and the floor was covered with warm brown carpet. The doors were black, with each of the apartment number and tenant’s name written on the plastic placards beside them.  
  
The three of them walked to a junction and turned left. On the end of the corridor was a door of an apartment that was wide open; various sounds were coming from inside, one of them being a loud, seemingly annoyed, “Someone get me caffeine before my head explodes!”  
  
Trying to ignore his own growing discomfort, Ruki followed behind Kazuki and Yuu into the apartment. Once they entered the genkan, he saw was of a couple of—he thought they were technicians—men who were fussing with rolls and rolls of cable on the floor. In the living room or what looked like it were even more people, each of them busy with their own tasks. One tall, nervous looking man was preparing the camera; one young, stern looking woman was fixing the position of the furniture; two men were in the middle of arguing on the far corner of the room; and one man with a plump red face, wearing green flannel shirt, was standing in the middle of the room. The latter guy seemed to be the one who had shouted for a cup of coffee earlier, and the one in charge of the entire film shooting, in other word, the director.  
  
That said man turned just in time when Kazuki, Yuu, and Ruki entered the living room. “Ah,” he exhaled. “There you are. I was just going to call you.”  
  
“Good morning to you too, Nagai,” Yuu replied, grinning wide. “Are we starting the shooting early today?”  
  
“No, but there’s something about the script that I need to talk to you—uh, do I know you?”  
  
Ruki bowed nervously under the director’s glare. “Hi, I’m Ruki, Yu—Aoi’s cousin,” he said, trying to act as naturally as he could possibly do. Lying wasn’t really his specialty.  
  
“Yes, he’s from Hokkaido, and he’s been staying at my place for the last couple of days. Today I thought I’d bring him along to the set.” Yuu circled his right arm around Ruki’s shoulder; the feeling calmed Ruki a tiny bit. However, it did nothing to convince him that he would succeed performing his own role today.  
  
Nagai, the director, looked a little unfriendly, but he didn’t seem to mind Yuu bringing a guest into the set without a prior notice. He did, however, sound very stern when he warned Ruki about what he should and should not do in the set during the shooting—for example, no wandering around or talking while the camera was rolling, no touching the setting, etcetera. Afterward, Nagai dragged Yuu away, and soon the two of them were busy discussing whatever Nagai thought was important to be discussed.  
  
Ruki felt a pat on his shoulder, and when he looked to his side, Kazuki was smiling.  
  
“I think it’s safe to say that we’re ditched at the moment, Ruki-kun,” he said. “Come on, I’ll show you the rest of the set.”

  
***

  
When it was time for lunch break, Ruki had found out the names of all the behind-the-scene staff on the set, thanks to Kazuki. The cameraman that he saw earlier when they had just arrived was called Tommy for some vague reason; the one who was responsible for the décor was Kondo Juri—a stern woman, quite known for her work in a number of interior magazines. The director’s assistant, a nervous little man with greasy hair, was called Hiro. Ruki also got to meet Kazahara Emi, the actress who played the ghost—and just like Yuu said earlier, she was such a nice person that it was difficult imagining her as a vengeful ghost floating around ruining someone’s life.  
  
Ruki didn’t get the chance to talk to Yuu or any of the people he met earlier once the shooting started. Obeying the director’s requests, he sat as quietly as he could manage in the changing room—which was actually the room adjacent to the genkan—staring at the row after row of makeup equipments that had been used to transform the originally sweet and lovely Kazahara Emi into a freakishly scary specter of a woman.  
  
Inside the room with him were the people he had also been introduced to: the makeup and wardrobe team. They were a bunch of vibrant personalities blended into one team. The one in charge of the casts’ hairdo was a tall, lanky man wearing a large oversized white t-shirt; his name was Rei. Wardrobe—as in every single piece of clothing that the casts were wearing during shooting—was handled by a plump woman named Mika. She was a bubbly kind of a person who couldn’t keep her mouth shut. It was one gossip after another, and she seemed to know so many celebrities to gossip about. The next one in the team was a young woman—probably in her mid-twenties—that went by the name of Kyoko who dealt with makeup. She had an amazing way in handling her makeup brushes, eyeshadow of many different colors, foundation, and many other things Ruki couldn’t even name. She was mostly quiet, focused in her work, leaving all the talking to Mika.  
  
To be honest, Ruki didn’t mind having these people as his company while he waited for Yuu to finish shooting and for Kazuki to return from wherever he had gone to. But in terms of his own duty, he didn’t feel like he was doing a really good job. So far, nobody seemed suspicious, at least not in the way that was threatening for Yuu. All the staff members were friendly, and they all treated Yuu with respect. It might have something to do with Yuu’s pleasant personality that made it easy for him to get along with almost everyone, but in Ruki’s opinion nobody seemed interested in hurting him.  
  
“How long are you staying with your cousin, Ruki-kun?”  
  
Ruki turned toward Mika who had just asked the question. “Umm… I didn’t plan on how long,” he said. “Probably a week or so, I’m not sure just yet.”  
  
What Ruki didn’t say was that he had no idea when the case would be solved. A week sounded like a safe prediction, although considering the situation at hand it didn’t seem like the case was anywhere near solved. He really should get something done soon; he had to find a clue to work with… today if possible.  
  
“So, Ruki-kun, what do you think about your cousin’s job?” Mika asked further. She was sitting right next to Kyoko; the latter was staring absently at her own lap, sipping coffee from a carton cup. Rei, in the mean time, had just gone to the toilet a minute ago.  
  
“I think… it’s an amazing job,” Ruki answered. “He entertains people, makes people feel lots of different emotions through the characters that he plays. It’s not an easy thing to do, but he does it so naturally.”  
  
“He does, doesn’t he? He’s really good in acting,” Mika gushed with a big smile on her face. “And he’s one of the very few actors that actually have a nice attitude. Right, Kyoko?”  
  
Kyoko flinched and looked up from her lap. “W-what? Oh, yes,” she stuttered, “He’s really, really nice.”  
  
Mika grinned. “He likes to bring coffee for the crew, or treat us all to lunch or dinner. What I personally think really special is how he always remembers people’s birthdays. Not many people do that, let alone a famous actor.”  
  
Ruki smiled, suddenly remembering high school days when he quietly observed Yuu—still his senior back then—from afar. Yuu had always been the center of people’s attention, and his friendliness was most likely the main reason why. It was nice to know that, even though he had gained fame and fortune, his characteristics never changed.  
  
“Believe me, Ruki-kun,” Mika continued, “I know enough actors in my entire life to tell you that there are too many jerks running around in this industry. But Aoi is definitely not one of them. Isn’t that so, Kyoko?”  
  
Again, Kyoko looked as if she was about to drop her cup of coffee. She nodded, looking flustered. “Yes, Mika, you’re right. You’re absolutely right.”  
  
Kyoko’s nervousness brought Ruki’s attention to her. At first he thought it was just her nature, that she was always so tense. But now he noticed that there was more than that. When she was doing Yuu’s makeup earlier, she practically had been blushing the entire time. And when Yuu talked to her, she replied with mostly mumbling and nervous giggles. Ruki would not claim himself to be an expert in reading other people’s body language, but these very typical signs told him that there was something behind the girl’s odd behavior.  
  
Ruki kept an eye on Kyoko for a little while longer until noises from outside of the room drew his attention. In the next minute, the casts entered the changing room, one by one. First was Kazahara Emi, followed closely by Yuu. The two of them were engaged in a seemingly funny conversation; Kazahara was laughing—which made her look a little creepy, because she was still in her ghost costume and makeup.  
  
”Hey, Ruki,” Yuu said when he looked at Ruki. “Emi was just telling me the time when she encountered a ghost. It was hilarious!”  
  
Yuu proceeded to sit on the chair in front of the makeup table while telling Ruki about Kazahara’s experience. It happened a long time ago when she was still in elementary school, something about a dare that she and her friends had done in the school toilet. Everybody in the room laughed when Yuu came to the part where Emi was climbing out of the toilet’s window and getting her skirt stuck on the windowsill.  
  
Kazuki came in a few minutes later carrying a box of cupcakes and a big smile on his face. “I was told that the cupcakes from this place are amazing,” he said, placing the box on top of the nearest table. “What time will today’s shooting will be over?”  
  
“Nagai said at three,” Yuu answered, already helping himself with a chocolate glazed cupcake from the box Kazuki brought. “The shooting is going so well today for some reason, so he said he would end the day soon so he could look over the scenes we’ve shot.”  
  
Mika, who was busy fumbling with a pink frosted cupcake in her right hand and Kazahara Emi’s wig on her left, giggled happily. “Great! In that case I can finally spend some quality time with my boyfriend!”  
  
While everybody was teasing Mika, Ruki was quietly watching Kyoko. She didn’t seem like she was interested in the commotion happening inside the room. All her attention was poured into what she was currently doing, which was fixing Yuu’s makeup. Her hand was holding her brush and sweeping it across Yuu’s face expertly, and her eyes were focused on her own motions.  
  
Someone outside shouted, “Lunch break for an hour!”  
  
“What on earth…” Rei paused in the middle of brushing Kazahara’s wig, and then sighed as he put away his brush. “Well, Emi-chan, I guess we’re going to have to continue this later.”  
  
Soon, the room was buzzing with noises as the catering team filed in with the lunch boxes. It was one of the most variable set of menu that Ruki had ever seen. It seemed like the team had prepared all kinds of food that were requested by the casts; every person received a different box. Yuu, for example, got spicy beef stew, broccoli with sweet sauce, and what seemed to be shrimp rolls topped with mayonnaise. There were several other side dishes, and Yuu also got a large cup of iced peach tea with his lunch box.  
  
“It reminds me a lot of home,” he said, smiling. “My mother used to make this during the summer for the entire family.”  
  
Lunch hour was nice, in Ruki’s opinion. The crew members and all the casts appeared to be in good terms with one another—even Nagai, who had seemed grumpy earlier, was sitting among the crew and laughing along with the jokes they were sharing. Ruki, Kazuki, Kazahara, Yuu, and the whole makeup team were sitting around a table, chatting amiably while finishing their lunch. Mika was doing most of the talking, as was expected of her, while everybody else adding up to the gossips she was sharing.  
  
Ruki hadn’t expected to be getting along so well with people he had only met, but he admitted he liked being in the company of these people. It had seemed intimidating first because he fully realized who these people were and how famous they were out there in the entertainment world. As someone who had spent most of his life living like a hermit, it felt weird but surprisingly good to be surrounded with talkative people like this.  
  
But the situation left him feeling uneasy. He remembered why he was here in the first place, and it definitely was not to go sightseeing. He didn’t think he was making too much progress by the looks of things around him. Mingling with these people was one thing, but analyzing their behaviors or scraping up information from them was a completely different thing, and Ruki was never really good at that.  
  
Just when Ruki was thinking about telling Kai to find a more competent man to perform this task, someone announced loudly that lunch break was over.  
  
Everyone shuffled back into each and their own activities; Yuu and Kazahara returned outside to shoot their next scene, the makeup team went to their posts to clean up some of their stuff. Nagai said that they would only shoot one more scene before calling it a wrap for today.  
  
Kazuki stood up from his seat, patting Ruki’s shoulder to come along. Ruki walked to the table where he had placed his bag, but before he exited the room, Mika sidled up to his side.  
  
“Um, excuse me, Ruki-kun,” she said, grinning. Her voice was a little hushed, and her gesture seemed somewhat secretive. “I just wanted to ask you something, if you don’t mind.”  
  
“What is it?”  
  
“It’s just something that…” Her eyes traveled sideways to the room, as if making sure no one else could hear what she was about to say. Finally, she led Ruki to the corner, and then continued. “Ruki-kun, you’re staying at Aoi’s place, right?”  
  
“Yes,” Ruki answered slowly, wondering where she was heading to.  
  
“Is there any chance that you’ve seen an, um, a teddy bear in Aoi’s apartment?” Mika asked.  
  
Ruki’s heart skipped a beat. _Could it be possible she was talking about the jinxed teddy bear that we found the other day?_  
  
“I’m not sure,” Ruki answered, quietly observing Mika’s face. “I haven’t been paying much attention to the things Yu—Aoi keeps in his apartment. Why do you ask?”  
  
The woman lurked over her shoulder again to check if there wasn’t anyone standing near them. And then she said in an even more hushed voice, “But you can’t tell Aoi, okay?”  
  
Frowning, Ruki nodded, agreeing.  
  
“Well, the teddy bear is from my friend, Kyoko,” Mika said. “You see, she is kind of a big fan of Aoi’s, but she doesn’t have enough courage to go and talk to him herself. She decided to send him the teddy bear. It was just meant as a gift. And, well, she was wondering if Aoi has kept it, or if he has thrown it away.”  
  
“O-oh…” Ruki threw a careful glance toward Kyoko, who had her back facing him. She looked like she was busy sorting out the stuff in her cosmetic case, but Ruki had a feeling that she wasn’t completely oblivious of what Mika was doing at the moment. It could very well be that she was the one who had asked Mika to approach Ruki in the first place.  
  
“I really don’t know,” Ruki said after a moment. “I’m sorry I can’t be much of a help, but if you want me to, I might be able to check it out later. What color is the teddy bear?”  
  
“Oh my God, that would be awesome!” Mika smiled wide. “It’s brown. The teddy bear is brown, and it has a small, red bow tie. It doesn’t have a card as far as I can remember, but I don’t think it’s that hard to find. Thank you so much, Ruki-kun!”  
  
Ruki watched as Mika hopped back to where Kyoko was standing, and then he turned around and headed toward the door. As he followed Kazuki out of the apartment, he was making notes in his head. Mika might not have mentioned the jinx, or maybe she hadn’t been aware of it at all. But if she had been telling the truth, then the girl who was responsible for it was Kyoko. What was her reason? Was it plainly based on sentiments? Was she just being a desperate fan without any intention to harm Yuu?  
  
This would need further investigation. Ruki didn’t know how to do it—what the best investigation method was—but he would eventually get to the bottom of it.  
  
He had to.

  
**\- TO BE CONTINUED -**   



	12. Chapter 12

“Well?”  
  
Uruha raised his eyebrows, curious, as Kai lowered his phone onto the desk.  He hadn’t been able to overhear much of the conversation Kai had just had, but he had caught a hint that the caller had been Ruki. A few days had passed since their last meeting, and Uruha had been wondering how far Ruki’s investigation had progressed. To be frank, he was worried. In his humble opinion, Ruki was just not cut up to be working an undercover job. He was too straightforward, too reserved to play the part—to play any part, that is, because the most important thing in undercover was acting talent. And Ruki… well, as far as Uruha could tell, was nowhere near being talented in that matter.  
  
He was just hoping that Ruki had just called to bring them some good news.  
  
Kai looked up from his phone to Uruha, and shrugged. “He said he might have a suspect,” he said, “a girl named Kyoko who works as one of Yuu’s makeup artists. Ruki was able to confirm that she was the girl who sent Yuu the teddy bear.”  
  
“The poorly-jinxed teddy bear?” Uruha asked. “I doubt that someone with such a sad jinxing skill can cause all the things that have been happening to Yuu.”  
  
“I’m thinking the same thing too, Uruha,” Kai sighed. “But so far, she’s our top suspect. I told Ruki to keep an eye on her, while broadening his search on other possible suspects. I’ve been doing research on my own, but I’ve always ended with either nothing or too many possibilities.”  
  
Uruha looked at Kai and knew at once that he was right. They had already put Ruki in the case; their only chance was to proceed with the plan and hope it would bring them good results. Uruha wished he could be more optimistic, but it was really hard considering the very little progress they were making so far. The case had taken quite some time already and they still didn’t have enough information to decide what they should do. No, never mind that; they couldn’t even tell what creature was causing the problems. The investigation was moving slowly and it was frustrating.  
  
“We need to talk to Ayame, to see if she’s got any analysis done about the situation so far. Normally she would have already handed me an entire list of possible causes and an even longer essay on ways to deal with them. But I think she’s having some difficulties with this case as well.”  
  
Kai exhaled again, one long heavy breath. He looked tired, as if he hadn’t slept for days—which might not be too farfetched. Kai could get very restless when he had a lot in his mind, and once that happened, he would stay up for days. Uruha had often warned him about his unhealthy tendency, had also suggested a number of ways that could possibly help him sleep easier (including alcohol, of course), but as the saying goes, ‘old habits die hard’.  
  
With a heavy sigh, Uruha tried to bury his concern in the back of his mind, and smiled. No use worrying about it so much right now—Kai was doing enough worrying for four people anyways. What Uruha could do was be a little more positive. He had to put more faith in Ruki and support the plan in any way he could. Who knows? Maybe the case would be solved sooner and much easier than he thought.  
  
He pushed himself off of the wall where he had been leaning on, and walked around the desk and behind Kai’s chair. He put his hands on Kai’s shoulders and massaged gently.  
  
“That frown is so unbecoming of you,” he said, smiling. “You’ve gotten wrinkly around your eyes, did you know that? Now come on, I think it’s nearing lunch break already. I still owe you for the dinner last night.”  
  
Kai’s light-hearted laugh filled the room. His shoulder still felt tense under Uruha’s fingers, but it seemed like he was relaxing bit by bit.  
  
“I didn’t expect you would think of it as a debt,” he said, still laughing. “Not when you eat at my place like three times a week.”  
  
Uruha felt the smile on his face turning into a grin. “Oh, really? Do I really come that often?” he teased. “Well, how could I help it, Kai? I feel nauseous whenever I can’t eat your cooking. I wonder if it’s a symptom of an illness that I’m developing recently.”  
  
“Oh, shut up you!” Kai laughed a little louder.  
  
With a couple of gentle taps on Kai’s shoulder, Uruha stepped back. He smiled expectantly as Kai stood up from his seat. As soon as they were side by side, he slung an arm around Kai’s shoulder.  
  
“Great,” Uruha said, “I’ve been dying to tell you about this new restaurant just down the street…”

  
***

  
Ruki slipped his phone back into his pocket after he finished his report to Kai. He didn’t like the fact that he hadn’t had a lot to report, but it was probably better than nothing. His opinion still stood; the girl that he had mentioned to Kai, Kyoko, did seem suspicious. From what Ruki had found out, she was the one responsible for the jinxed teddy bear in Yuu’s apartment. That might not serve as strong evidence, but it was the closest lead he had. Kai had also advised him to continue with his research, so that’s what he was going to do.  
  
Funny that he currently felt eager, as opposed to being miserable like he had felt when he was first handed the task. He wanted to find out the culprit as soon as possible; he wanted to be done with this case. It wasn’t that he didn’t like being around Yuu, although he thought he might have been a little uncomfortable at first. But it turned out Yuu was a fun guy to be around—yet that’s exactly why he wanted this to end soon. He didn’t like seeing Yuu so agitated every night in his sleep, obviously terrified that something would be bothering him again when he was off guard. If it kept on going, soon enough it would affect his health, his work, and maybe even his sanity.  
  
Ruki intended to do what he could to prevent that. And if that meant he had to put forth his close-to-zero acting talent, then he would do just that.  
  
The journey back to Yuu’s apartment was mostly uneventful, but it was probably because Ruki wasn’t paying attention to anything much except his own thoughts. Somewhere along the way, though, he turned his whole focus to Kazuki’s and Yuu’s conversation. It was when he heard the name ‘Kyoko’ being mentioned.  
  
“Lunch wasn’t great? You’re just saying you want Kyoko to bring you lunch again,” Kazuki scoffed, smoothly turning the steering wheel to the left.  
  
“I’m not saying the catering wasn’t doing their job like they should,” Yuu said. “But now that you’ve mentioned it, I do kind of wish she would bring me _gyoza_ like the ones she brought the other day.”  
  
“You do know that if she keeps bringing food for you, the catering team will be left with no job to do. And she might lose focus on her own job, too. Imagine having to wake up really early to make lunch for you every day.”  
  
Yuu laughed. “I think you’re just jealous that she’s making lunch for me but not for you.”  
  
“Oh, come on,” Kazuki shook his head. “Why should I even be jealous? Her cooking is not _that_ good.”  
  
The car lurched into the driveway that led into Yuu’s apartment complex. Through the window, Ruki could see that the afternoon was slowly becoming darker. The sun was setting on the horizon behind the apartment buildings, casting long, seemingly ominous shadows all across the yard. Night was approaching, and it made Ruki feel slightly anxious. He couldn’t help wondering if something strange would happen again tonight.  
  
Ruki kept his ears wide open while they made their way up to Yuu’s apartment, making sure he heard all he needed to know about Kyoko. He hadn’t expected he would get extra information about that girl this soon, from Yuu and Kazuki of all people, but he would take all the chance he got.  
  
“I have no reason to be jealous,” Kazuki insisted. “To tell you the truth, she is actually giving me the creeps.”  
  
“Why?” Yuu asked. “She’s a nice girl.”  
  
“How can you even tell that she’s nice? She hardly ever talks. She just sits there quietly, staring at you at every chance she’s got.”  
  
“What are you talking about?” Yuu laughed. “Why would she be staring at me?”  
  
“Aoi, seriously, just how oblivious exactly are you?” Kazuki shook his head in disbelief. “She’s beaming like a neon light whenever you show up in front of her. And why do you think she keeps bringing you stuff from lunch to gifts from her hometown?”  
  
“Well, I just thought she liked doing that, you know, sharing stuff with the crew,” Yuu shrugged. “I wasn’t thinking she had an ulterior motive or whatever.”  
  
The three of them entered a vacant elevator; Kazuki pressed the number 6 with a practiced ease, and soon they were heading upward.  
  
Ruki was too focused in noting the things he overheard in his mind that he hardly even noticed when Yuu asked him a question. “Huh?” he stuttered, feeling like a deer caught in the headlights when he saw Yuu staring at him. “What was it again?”  
  
“I asked you what you thought about her. I think I saw you talk to her and the rest of the makeup and wardrobe team today,” Yuu repeated. An amused look graced his face; Ruki felt himself blushing being caught while he was distracted.  
  
“I did,” Ruki answered Yuu’s question, just in time with the sound of a chime that told them they had reached the 6th floor. They filed out of the elevator, and continued walking toward Yuu’s apartment.  
  
“I thought at first that she was nervous,” Ruki resumed. “But I suppose she was just naturally quiet and reserved. She didn’t talk very much and mostly just kept to herself, very much unlike her friend.”  
  
“You mean Mika? Oh yes, that girl doesn’t ever stop talking,” Yuu laughed. “It often makes me wonder how a girl as quiet as Kyoko can get along so well with someone like Mika.”  
  
“I’m not usually a good judge of character, especially about people whom I’ve just met. I also haven’t had what you might call a decent conversation with her. But I think that maybe Kyoko is a nice girl, at least in her own way,” Ruki finished, stopping himself before he blurted the fact about the teddy bear that he had found out earlier. He didn’t think it would be wise to tell Yuu and Kazuki about that. Like all case-related information, he would rather confirm it with Kai first before recklessly telling anyone else, even Yuu.  
  
“Maybe you should spend some more time talking to her too, Kazuki,” Yuu turned to his manager. “Maybe then you’ll find that she’s not as creepy as you think.”  
  
Kazuki merely rolled his eyes and ignored Yuu’s suggestion.  
  
The three of them reached apartment number 612. Yuu fished his keys from his pocket, and opened the door of his apartment. He made a move to enter his apartment; Kazuki, however, stepped back.  
  
“I’ve got phonecalls to make tonight about your appointments tomorrow,” the manager said, sighing. “And I still haven’t had the time to do my laundry since last week. I better get to it as soon as I can before I have cockroaches making a nest in my room.”  
  
“Okay, don’t exert yourself, you workaholic,” Yuu grinned. He gave his manager a pat on the shoulder, and watched as the man walked away back toward the elevator. Ruki reminded himself that Kazuki lived in the same building, only two stories above their heads.

  
***

  
He almost felt regretful about leaving the bathroom, already missing the moments he had been able to spend in the bathtub, where he could let warm water caress his skin and ease his nerves. Too soon for his liking, he was reminded of what a tense day it had been. Working on his very first undercover task had not been easy for him, and to make it worse, he had to come face to face with a universe that, before today, had only existed on his television screen. Entertainment industry was definitely worlds away from his daily life. There were some aspects that he had found fascinating, but mostly there had been too much glamour and bright lights for him to stomach. Meeting the people who worked on the set and learning what usually happened there every day had successfully made him feel tense, both physically and mentally, the whole day through.  
  
He wondered how Ryoga, Naoki and everyone else in the Undercover Section managed day after day to adjust themselves with many different situations. It must have been a skill they were just born with.  
  
Barefooted, the tiles felt slightly cold against his feet. He rushed a bit until he could feel the welcoming warmth and soft, furry surface of the carpet in the living room, but then he abruptly stopped. His ears caught sounds coming from the bedroom—its door was slightly ajar. He stood almost totally motionless. Those sounds seemed to have come right up from the bottom of his memories, from his younger days that he thought he had completely left behind when he graduated high school.  
  
It was a song by B’z, Ruki recalled faintly as the melodies of an acoustic guitar continued filling the air around him. The title was _Konya Tsuki no Mieru Oka ni_ , a song that was really famous in its time, which was more than a decade ago. The melodies came out a little shaky, as if the fingers playing those strings were nervous or out of practice, but he was certain it was that very song. The last time he had heard someone playing an acoustic guitar cover of that song was when…  
  
With escalating heartbeats, Ruki proceeded to the direction of the bedroom. As far as he knew, there were only him and Yuu in the apartment, so it couldn’t have been anyone else. But still, upon seeing Yuu playing his guitar, his eyes went wide and his jaw hung loose. The actor was sitting on the edge of the bed, a polished brown acoustic guitar perched on his lap. His fingers were moving across the strings with a certain familiarity, delivering the song to Ruki’s eardrums.  
  
He opened the door a few inches wider, and peeked carefully inside. And then he tiptoed clumsily into the room, afraid to disturb Yuu and the song he was playing. But fortunately, even though Yuu seemed to notice him entering the room, he didn’t stop strumming the guitar.  
  
“I can’t remember the last time I played this song.” Yuu’s voice mingled gently with the tunes coming from the guitar. “High school, I think. My band used to do a lot of cover of B’z’s songs.”  
  
 _Yeah, high school. During school festival, to be exact._ Ruki thought in silence, eyes never leaving those fingers and their lithe dance across the strings. Some of the melodies came out wrong, but Ruki kept listening without protest. Just like Yuu said, it had been quite a while since the last time he played this song. It sounded good enough for Ruki anyways, but that was probably because he hadn’t the slightest idea about how to play a guitar.  
  
The song eventually came to a stop when one of Yuu’s hands left the guitar and patted the bed’s surface right next to him. “Come, sit down,” he looked at Ruki, smiling. An award winning smile that turned Ruki’s legs to jelly.  
  
For some reason that he didn’t understand, Ruki didn’t trip as he made his way toward the bed. He sat down safely beside Yuu, making sure there was enough space between the two of them so that he wouldn’t accidentally knock off Yuu’s guitar—he could be very clumsy and humiliating when he was nervous.  
  
“Old school bands are the best,” Yuu said. “Well, at least in my opinion. Their songs never grow old. I can listen to the songs that used to be popular when I was younger, over and over again, and never get bored of them.”  
  
A random chord rang from the guitar, following the movement of Yuu’s hand on the strings. The actor’s eyes were brimming with nostalgia, it was almost impossible to look straight into them.  
  
“What’s your favorite band, Ruki?”  
  
It should have been a simple question, a topic that could have been brought by two guys who were having a leisure conversation during lunch break. But to Ruki it didn’t seem to make sense, at first. He was too preoccupied by struggling to find a spot on Yuu’s face to stare at that wouldn’t make his heart burst inside his ribcage.  
  
“Uh,” Ruki mumbled as soon as he found his voice. “I don’t like one band in particular. I mean—I listen to many different kinds of music, but most of the times I don’t pay attention to the band or the artist. But I guess you’re right; songs from our high school days are a lot more memorable than modern songs.”  
  
He saw Yuu arching one of his eyebrows, and instantly wondered if he had said something funny.  
  
“Yeah, high school days…” Yuu nodded wistfully. “Those days were gold.”  
  
There was a glint in Yuu’s eyes that was unnerving to watch, so Ruki averted his gaze to somewhere else less intimidating—the nightstand, for instance.  
  
Ruki didn’t get to spend too much time staring at the small lamp on top of the nightstand—at how round it was and how smooth its surface was and all other unimportant details of it—because he suddenly felt the bed move underneath him. He turned around to see Yuu standing up, guitar in his hands and a smile on his face. Ruki kept his thoughts to himself, but to be honest he felt a little bit sorry that Yuu had stopped playing his guitar.  
  
“Alright, we better get some rest,” Yuu said, already on his way to stash his guitar. “Kazuki hasn’t told me yet, but I’m pretty sure I have an early schedule tomorrow. We’re shooting a commercial on a rooftop… or something like that.” Yuu frowned; he was probably trying to remember his schedule. And then he shrugged, and turned right back to Ruki, “You’re coming with us again, aren’t you?”  
  
Ruki answered with an awkward nod, and then watched as Yuu left the room with a ‘ _I’m taking a bath_ ’ spoken over his shoulder. It was a few minutes later that Ruki finally stood up and made his way to the makeshift futon right next to Yuu’s bed that had served as his little nest for the past couple of days. He shuffled into the covers and puffed the pillow under his head. It’s a sad spot to sleep in, he knew, but Yuu wouldn’t let him sleep elsewhere and he sure as hell couldn’t sleep in Yuu’s bed (despite Yuu’s numerous attempt at persuading him).  
  
The notes from the song he had heard Yuu playing were still ringing in his head, clear and haunting, as he lied down and stared at the ceiling, wondering what kind of day he would be facing tomorrow.

  
**\- TO BE CONTINUED -**   



	13. Chapter 13

Ruki woke up with a start, thinking someone had crashed into his apartment—a burglar, or most likely his ever-annoying neighbor who always seemed so intent on informing him what garbage day it was at the abnormal hours in the morning. He sat up in bed, blinked his eyes blearily, and soon realized that he wasn’t in his own apartment. Once his drowsiness had subsided a little and his mind could cooperate, he remembered where he was. He was in Yuu’s apartment, Yuu’s bedroom, to be exact. He was sitting on his futon on the floor—his lower vertebrae hurt a bit; it was quite a thin futon—with his blanket tangled around his legs.  
  
He yawned, a little disoriented, wondering what noise he had heard earlier. He crawled out of his cocoon of blankets, ran his fingers through his hair, and stood up.  
  
Yuu’s bed was empty.  
  
He looked around the room. Sunshine, still gentle in its early wake, was streaming through the curtains, bathing the room in a warm sepia wash of color. It couldn’t be later than 8 or 9 a.m., he guessed. In his own room, back in his apartment, it was always easy to estimate what time it was even though he wasn’t looking at the clock. But here, here he felt a little disoriented. Not to mention Yuu didn’t have a large clock hanging on the wall like the one Ruki had in his room to tell him what time it was. Ruki figured someone like Yuu wouldn’t need an alarm or clock to be able to wake up in the morning; he had his manager to call him and remind him of his schedule.  
  
It’s just one of the perks of being a famous actor, Ruki supposed.  
  
After another minute, he finally decided that the source of the sound that had woken him up hadn’t come from this room. Quickly, he tidied up his futon, ran his hands through his hair (although he wasn’t sure what good that might do), and walked outside. He could hear some more noises, like metal clanging against another hard surface, and then the sound of someone cursing.  
  
The corridor was empty, and so was the living room. And then he turned his sight at the kitchen.  
  
He actually spent the first minute trying to figure out what was happening before his eyes. Maybe it was because he had never seen Yuu using the things in his kitchen during his stay in this apartment, or maybe it was because he had somehow imagined some invisible maid was always on standby, serving food for Yuu whenever he needed it. Either way, it was hard for him to visualize Yuu _cooking_.  
  
Well, it looked like he was cooking. For the most part he seemed to be trying to demolish his cooking utensils along with the entire kitchen. He was clad in what he had been wearing last night when he went to bed, a dark brown t-shirt and black jersey pants. His bed-hair looked nice, definitely a lot nicer than Ruki’s. He was humming a tune from a song that Ruki had never heard of before. But the tune was abruptly cut off when suddenly Yuu yelped loudly.  
  
 Ruki hurried toward him, worrying for the worst.  
  
“Are you okay?” he asked, cringing when he approached a little bit closer. Yuu was holding his right thumb in his left hand. He had a grimace on his face that told Ruki that he was in pain.  
  
“Ruki, you’re up, hey,” he grinned awkwardly. “Yeah, I’m fine, it’s just…” He wiggled his thumb, “I took a hold of the wrong side of the pan.”  
  
Thoughtlessly Ruki grabbed Yuu’s hand and took a closer look of the injured thumb. The tip looked a little red. It wasn’t swollen, not yet. Hurriedly Ruki opened the faucet nearby, and pulled Yuu along until he could hold the injured thumb under the running water.  
  
“You have to keep it under running water for at least ten minutes,” Ruki said, “to prevent it from becoming swollen. And then you can apply some _Aloe Vera_ or salve on it to ease the pain.”  
  
“I think I have anti-inflammation salve in the bathroom,” Yuu said, making him turn his attention toward the man speaking, and only then that Ruki realized that he had been gripping Yuu’s hand. He quickly released it, his face burning as if he had been the one standing too close to the stove.  
  
“Umm, yeah, so you just… keep your thumb under the water for a while,” he said, stuttering. “I’ll go get the salve.”  
  
A few minutes later Ruki returned to the kitchen, salve and a roll of bandage in hand. He found Yuu hovering just beside the stove, peering over at something that seemed to be sizzling inside a pan. Ruki shook his head; after what had happened he expected Yuu would’ve been more careful before he hurt any other part of his body, but just look at him.  
  
Ruki sighed. “What exactly are you doing?” he asked, handing Yuu the salve and bandage. He eyed the pan on top of the stove, discerning a lump of mess that looked a lot like scrambled egg, only the color was bright orange.  
  
“I’m cooking breakfast,” Yuu answered with a shrug, as if it should have been obvious.  
  
“Is this egg? Why is it orange?”  
  
“I think I put in too much ketchup,” Yuu laughed.  
  
Ruki looked at him incredulously. “You put ketchup into the egg?”  
  
Again, Yuu shrugged. “I just thought it would taste good with ketchup,” he said. “Sorry, I don’t usually cook for myself.”  
  
“Obviously,” Ruki sighed. “Here, let me see if I can do something about this.”  
  
He grabbed a spatula and started mixing the orange mess in the pan. The egg was still half-cooked, so he thought it was still worth saving.  
  
“Once you’re done bandaging your finger, can you help me grab some rice from the magic jar?” he said to Yuu. “And then some chives. I think you still have some in your refrigerator.”  
  
He tried not to feel too bothered by the fact that he had already memorized where Yuu kept various things in his apartment. He had been here for almost a whole week after all.  
  
Soon, Yuu sidled up to his side with a bowl of steaming rice and a handful of chives. Ruki dumped the content of the bowl into the pan, and following right after, a spoonful of butter. _"You can never add enough creamy butter to a sizzling hot scrambled egg,"_ said his mother a long, long time ago. And true enough, as the scent of melting butter wafted from the pan to fill the entire room, Ruki could feel his mouth becoming watery.  
  
“I didn’t know you’re so good at cooking.”  
  
It was the worst timing in the world, really; Ruki was chopping the chives and he nearly cut his own finger because of the shock. Not because of the compliment itself, but because of how Yuu had practically whispered the words right into his ear. His heart throbbed against his ribs, his hands were shaking, but thankfully no damage had been done (his finger was, thank goodness, still intact). It took nearly every ounce of his courage to gently elbow Yuu on the stomach so he would back away for a bit. Ruki could really use some space, especially from Yuu, before he himself suffered any injury.  
  
“You just go get a couple of plates ready, okay?” Ruki pointed his spatula toward Yuu in a threatening manner. “The further you are from the stove, the safest it is for both of us.”  
  
Yuu laughed, looking amused rather than offended, and stepped aside to do what Ruki had asked him to. Amidst the sounds of ceramic plates clanking against the surface of the dinner table, Yuu chattered cheerfully.  
  
“You’re my savior. I was so close to just dump everything into the trashcan and call for delivery instead,” he said. “Where did you learn how to cook?”  
  
Ruki scooped the chives he had finely chopped and put them into the pan. He added black pepper, salt, and a little bit of soy sauce. It would probably taste a lot better with a pinch of _katsuobushi_ —Ruki liked to add it to anything, anything—but he didn’t think Yuu ever thought of keeping a stock of it in his almost non-existent stock of cooking ingredients. He was already lucky that Yuu actually had pepper and salt.  
  
“I guess I began by looking at my mom when she cooked for the family,” Ruki answered Yuu’s question. “And then by the time I moved away and started living by myself, I found out that sometimes it saved a lot of money if I cooked my own food. It’s not exactly a hobby by choice, no. But I do get a certain sense of satisfaction when I manage to whip up something edible. Like, wow, what do you know, I can actually cook this.”  
  
A moment stretched where the sound of food crackling gently in the pan became the only noises heard, and then Ruki got the feeling that he was being watched. True enough, when he turned around, Yuu was staring at him with twinkles in his eyes and a smile on his lips. Ruki be damned if his stomach didn’t just do a backflip at the sight.  
  
“W—what?”  
  
Yuu’s smile broadened into a grin. “This is the longest I hear you talking.” He was standing a few feet away, his back leaning against the refrigerator, his arms folded in front of his chest. “It was always Kai or the others talking, but not you. You were usually sitting on the side, observing, quiet. Only when you were asked to talk would you talk, and even then you would only say a handful of syllables. I thought I could never get you to talking, especially not about yourself.”  
  
Ruki could feel himself blushing from head to toe. He averted his gaze back into the pan; the rice was just about ready to serve. With slightly shaky hands, he picked up the pan and made his way to the dinner table, where he served the rice-and-egg on the plates that Yuu had prepared. It looked and smelled delicious—he could only hope it tasted delicious as well.  
  
“Well, dig in,” Ruki mumbled, unable to lift his gaze at Yuu.  
  
Yuu laughed. “You’re embarrassed.”  
  
“No,” Ruki said defensively. He pulled a chair and sat down. “It’s just…well, you’re kind of right. I’m not used to talking to people, except during meetings at the institute.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Yes, really.” He shrugged, “I’m not an outgoing person. I don’t hangout with people, I don’t spend hours on the phone talking with friends. I just don’t.”  
  
There was something unreadable in Yuu’s eyes when Ruki finally managed to brace himself and looked up at him. But it was soon replaced by his usual million yen smile.  
  
“You can probably hear it but stomach is growling,” he said, grabbing a spoon and began scooping some of Ruki’s cooking into his mouth. Ruki stared, half relieved that Yuu had steered away from the topic, and half nervous about letting Yuu eat his cooking. It seemed like an entire minute had passed before Yuu finally reacted.  
  
The reaction came out more as a squeak than anything else.  
  
Ruki stared at him, wide-eyed, worried that Yuu had accidentally swallowed something that got stuck in his throat. But then Yuu laughed.  
  
“Oh my God,” he said, spooning more rice-and-egg into his mouth. His eyes were sparkling when he looked at Ruki. “Oh my God, this is so _good_!”  
  
The scene wasn’t immediately registered in Ruki’s head, not the way Yuu was eating nor the comment that he had just said (with a mouthful of Ruki’s cooking). But once it did, Ruki could feel his face heating up again. It couldn’t be that good, could it? He tasted a spoonful of the rice; well, it tasted okay, but it wasn’t special. With such a limited amount of ingredients in Yuu’s kitchen, he wasn’t sure he could concoct anything extraordinary.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Yuu chuckled. Ruki really hoped he would slow down, otherwise he was going to choke for real. “But this is really good,” the actor continued, grinning, “I can’t remember the last time I ate anything so heartwarming.”  
  
“Really?” Ruki asked disbelievingly. Someone like Yuu surely had eaten in fancy restaurants, places where the chefs were graduates from international cooking academies. This thing that Ruki had cooked, it definitely wasn’t what one would consider as high-class culinary.  
  
Yuu nodded. “Really. Well, you see, I don’t get to eat homemade meal regularly. I myself can’t cook to save my life, so the only place I get to enjoy that kind of luxury is when I go home to my parents’ place, but that doesn’t happen very often. So, yeah, this is really good.”  
  
Ruki mulled over what Yuu had just told him, watching as the actor finished his breakfast with a happy look on his face. He had since long realized that their lives were different, very different, but with this piece of information the distance stretched just a little bit further. He wondered how often Yuu visited his family, how his busy schedule affected his personal life. He thought about his own family—his mother, with her endless fussing and random urge to gossip regardless of the place and time; his father, his strict, almost totally conservative father. No matter how busy Ruki was at the institute, he had to spare some time to go home and visit them at least once a month. His mother said there shouldn’t be any kind of job in this world that kept a child away from their family. He understood the logic behind her words, but making time to visit them in a regular basis could get a bit troublesome sometimes.  
  
 _Well, there are billions of people in this world and everyone leads a different life. There’s a famous actor, and there’s a Curses and Jinxes expert who works in the Paranormal Studies Center._  
  
It’s weird that their lives should intertwine with one another, and even funnier to think that Yuu had been his senior in high-school—not that Yuu realized that. It’s like, at one point in his life Ruki had existed in the same time and space as Yuu, but then somewhere along the way their paths parted, leading them to completely different worlds. Now, years after that, these paths had somehow reconnected in a way that Ruki had never imagined. They both had changed into different persons, leading different lives—there were so many differences, and each was so stark it sometimes made Ruki feel uncomfortable.  
  
Fate, Ruki decided, had a weird sense of humor.

 

***

  
“You soap I rinse.”  
  
Ruki lifted his eyebrows at that, but moved toward the sink anyways, a stack of plates and dirty spoons in his hands. He didn’t say it out loud, but he thought someone like Yuu would have an automatic dish washer or something in this apartment. Again, this might just be Ruki thinking based on prejudice, but he had a hard time believing that Yuu would be doing his own dish-washing manually.  
  
He lathered the dishes with soap water, and started scrubbing. Yuu was standing right next to him, humming slowly; his voice sounded smooth in between the sound of water splashing against the bottom of the sink.  
  
 _Well, isn’t this funny,_ Ruki thought to himself. Yuu’s presence had somehow warmed up to him even without him realizing it. It didn’t feel as awkward as it used to be the day they first met, or the few days after that. Maybe staying in the same apartment—hell, the same bedroom—had helped Ruki to push away a part of his discomfort. Maybe.  
  
He knew it seemed a bit cruel that he felt happy about the situation. He wasn’t happy about Yuu’s life turning into a rollercoaster of unwelcomed supernatural mayhem, but he was thrilled about being able to become close to Yuu. Truth be told, in high school he used to have a little crush on Yuu. This wasn’t something he could tell anyone, ever, for obvious reasons, but Yuu was such a charismatic person even in high school. He wasn’t the smartest student in school, but for what he lacked he substituted with other talents such as acting, music, and charming people with his suave way of talking.  
  
Nothing seemed to change much, except the fact that Yuu seemed to have learned how to use his talents and become who he was now.  
  
As for the way Ruki felt about the man right now… No. It was a high school thing. It was a long time ago, and now he was completely over it. All these awkwardness that he felt were nothing unusual; he always felt awkward around people he wasn’t familiar with. All he thought about Yuu at the moment was just he was his client. Everything was strictly professional.  
  
He tried not to dwell on the nagging thought that all of this was just an effort to convince himself.  
  
And then, all of a sudden, the entire left part of his face was soaked wet.  
  
“Yuu! What are you doing?!” Ruki yelped, dropping a bowl—plastic, thankfully, nothing breakable—into the sink as he jerked sideways. He raised a hand to his cheek, the cheek that Yuu had splashed with water.  
  
Yuu didn’t look anywhere near sorry. Instead, he chuckled, pointing at Ruki’s face. “You just covered your own face with soap!” he said, wheezing with laughter.  
  
Ruki gasped, his instant reaction was to wipe his face with his hands, only to realize that he was only making it worse. He could taste soap water in his mouth, so bitter he had to spit it back out. “Yuu!” he shouted, and flailed his hands about, getting soap water everywhere.  
  
“Whoa! Hey!”  
  
Yuu laughed even harder, skipping back to avoid getting splashed. But Ruki would not have it; he stretched his arms forward, wet, dripping hands poised toward Yuu, and jumped ahead. Yuu tried to run, but Ruki was smaller built (not that he would happily admit it) and he could move fast if he wanted to. The next thing he knew, his palms were on Yuu’s cheeks, getting slippery soap water all over the man’s face. Yuu was cringing, eyes tightly shut, yelping, _begging_ for Ruki to stop. Too bad for the guy, but Ruki could be mean too.  
  
Pretty soon they were wrestling, water splashing everywhere, wetting their hairs and faces and clothes, and also the floor. At one point Yuu got him locked with one arm, while with his free hand he was pouring a handful of water onto Ruki’s hair. Ruki screamed, partially laughing, and then swerved, sneaking away from Yuu’s hold. With one hand he pushed Yuu back a bit so that he could dash toward the sink. But before he could get far, Yuu grabbed his arm and pulled him back. Ruki lost his balance—the floor had become very slippery—and fell against Yuu, his back hitting a firm chest.  
  
“Oof!” Yuu huffed, but the impact didn’t seem to hurt him, because he was still laughing. His arm was holding Ruki around his chest; his breath felt warm against Ruki’s neck. “You’re pretty fast for a short guy.”  
  
“Say short one more time and I’m going to make you swallow an entire bottle of soap,” Ruki grunted, struggling to get himself free from Yuu’s hold. No, height issues didn’t really bother him… not too much. “Let me go!”  
  
“Okay, okay! So feisty.”  
  
Yuu finally loosened his hold. Ruki turned around, keeping an alert stance just in case.  
  
“I’m calling a truce!” Yuu lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender, but his grin was still stretched so wide on his face. “No more splashing, okay? We’ve already made my kitchen look like it’s gone through a tsunami.”  
  
“Well, you started it,” Ruki huffed, relaxing. He hadn’t realized it before, but his face felt hot, and he wasn’t sure it was because he had exerted himself during the water-splashing-battle that just happened. For some reason he couldn’t get his mind off of the feeling of Yuu’s breath on his neck.  
  
“I did,” Yuu said cheerfully. “But at least I got rid of that serious look on your face.”  
  
If Ruki hadn’t been blushing like an idiot before, he sure was now. But Yuu was right; that little battle of water and soap between them had successfully driven out the thoughts that had clouded Ruki’s mind earlier.  
  
“But I’m all wet now.” Ruki didn’t mean to sound childish. He felt unreasonably upset, but deep inside he wasn’t sure it was because his hair was dripping sudsy water onto his clothes.  
  
“That makes the two of us, Mister Obvious,” Yuu countered back, one of his brows arched amusedly. “If you haven’t noticed, I’m also thoroughly drenched, thank you very much.”  
  
Ruki flinched—he couldn’t help it—when Yuu reached out and ruffled his wet hair; more water splashing to all direction. Inside of him, his nerves snapping like rubber bands strained to their limits. It took every last strand of his willpower just to remain calm and stay on the spot, rather than fleeing as far as he could possibly go like what his brain was telling him to.  
  
It felt good, even though it was just Yuu’s hand touching his head. It felt good—heart-warming, skin-prickling kind of good—and in that instant Ruki knew he was doomed.  
  
He intended to say something witty as a retort to Yuu, and he would have probably tried to push his hand away from his head and then said something else that was just as witty, but before he could do anything, he felt a tug on the back of his t-shirt collar. His eyes shot open, wide. The next thing he knew, he was being wrenched backward, away from Yuu. Whoever—or whatever—pulled him apparently had enough strength to easily drag him across the kitchen, and then throw him hard against the table.  
  
Ruki could feel something in him crack, one of his rib bones probably. The next thing he knew, the entire left side of his body hurt like nothing else he had experienced in his life. With a gasp he crumbled onto the floor.  
  
From that second on all he could see was nothing but a moving blur. He could vaguely see Yuu approaching him; could hear Yuu’s voice, his panicked shrieks and his repeated “Ruki, are you okay?” question. He wanted to answer, _"no, I’m not okay, can’t you see that I’ve just got thrown against a table?"_ but all he could do was wheeze, struggling to breathe through all the pain invading his body. Yuu grabbed his arm, but in a blink of an eye, something pushed him away with such a force he was skidding across the floor until he was ten feet away from Ruki.  
  
Ruki lifted his right hand—his left side felt like on fire because of the pain in his ribs—and tried to reach Yuu. But something, something invisible and strong turned him around until his back was pressed against the floor. It took a hold of his neck and started squeezing. Ruki gasped again, panting, hands clawing at the unseen creature. His legs were kicking, hitting solid surface, but his assaults seemed to go unnoticed by the creature.  
  
On the peripheral of his vision, Ruki could see Yuu approaching again, but again, before he got too close, he bounced off like something had kicked him back. Yuu coughed, holding his chest.  
  
“Ruki!” Yuu screamed. Raw fear was evident in his voice. “Stay away from him, you demon! Don’t hurt him! It’s me you want!”  
  
Ruki would have given a standing applause for Yuu’s valiant oration if he hadn’t been strangled by invisible hands. However, Yuu’s words didn’t seem to affect the situation at all; if anything, the pressure around Ruki’s neck only tightened, cutting off his respiration.  
  
He couldn’t breathe. He was dying, and it hurt so much.  
  
Some people said that when you were dying you would get a glimpse of your entire life abbreviated into a matter of seconds. That’s not what was happening to Ruki, though. Instead, he was looking at Yuu, at how desperate Yuu seemed to reach out to him. He wanted to say thank you, because he had never imagined that one day a famous actor like Yuu, who happened to be a senior he used to know in high school as well, would give so much effort just to save him. He wanted to tell Yuu that he was running out of shampoo, and while he was on the topic, Yuu should go grocery shopping soon. It would be some weird last words before he died, but nothing else came to mind at the moment.  
  
He wanted to tell Yuu, _"Hey, just so you know, I kind of admired you a lot in high school. Well, maybe I do too now, but how can I help it when you’re being such a nice guy all the time?"_ He figured it would be great if he could tell him that, so he could die without leaving any regret.  
  
Nothing came out of his mouth, though, and when he thought he couldn’t hold it anymore, the world turned bright red—as if someone was switching on a red spotlight and pointed it right into his eyes. A crackling sensation burst through from the back of his mind. Something screamed. Not him, he supposed. Yuu? It didn’t sound like him either.  
  
He blinked. _That’s weird._  
  
But before his brain managed to comprehend what was going on, the red quickly melted into black, and very soon darkness engulfed him completely.

 

**\- TO BE CONTINUED -**


	14. Chapter 14

Ruki woke up to a song that sounded suspiciously like SpongeBob SquarePants’ opening theme song.

It was followed immediately with a voice of someone complaining about the choice of channel. This person said the afternoon news program would be more appropriate to watch instead of this stupid kindergarten cartoon show. But another person quickly argued that the episode that was currently being aired at the moment was one of the funniest episodes ever—something about SpongeBob and Patrick getting into trouble after being left in charge of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy’s secret cave—and it didn’t matter how often it was aired, it would never get boring. Th bantering continued, tinkered with SpongeBob’s and Patrick’s voices every now and then.

It was a fascinating argument, and it was the first time Ruki had ever heard such an adamant discussion about SpongeBob Squarepants. But at the most inappropriate moment, Ruki’s body decided to throb with pain. The pain was so intense it blocked everything else, including the noises around him. He moaned agonizingly.

“Oh, he’s awake!” Someone yelled a little too loud, making Ruki cringe.

Ruki opened his eyes and saw nothing but a big blur at first. But when his sight cleared up a bit, he could see the faces that hovered above him. Nearly half of the Department of Investigation and Recovery were here. He recognized Kai, Uruha, Shou, Miho, and Hiroto. A little bit further on his right, standing by the window were Reita and Ayame. Reita was clutching a remote in his hands, while Ayame was standing in front of him with her arms folded across her chest. It became obvious who had been arguing about SpongeBob SquarePants earlier.

And then there was a flurry of movements from his left, and the next thing he knew there was Yuu’s face invading his entire sight. Ruki was so shocked he thought he was going to faint again.

“Thank goodness you’re finally awake!” the actor said. His face was practically brimming with concern. “How do you feel?”

“Like I’ve been hit by a truck,” Ruki answered weakly. He had never really been hit by a truck, but if he had, he knew it must have felt like this. The pain seemed to originate from his left rib, where it felt the most intense, spreading to his whole body. Even the sight of Yuu’s face couldn’t take his mind away from the throbbing pain.

Ruki blushed; where did that thought come from? And then suddenly came the flashes of memories, the thoughts he had been having during the attack in Yuu’s apartment just before he blacked out. He blushed even worse.

“Ruki? Are you alright?” Yuu asked, his voice sounded panicked. “Your face is all red! Should I buzz the doctor?”

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” Ruki stopped Yuu before he reached for the button just above his bed. “By the way… where am I?”

Kai stepped closer toward the bed at Ruki’s right side. His face looked serious, but Ruki couldn’t tell whether his boss was upset, worried, or tired. Probably all of that and more.

“You’re in the hospital,” Kai explained. “You have a fractured rib, a dislocated shoulder, and tons of bruises. But you will be fine. At least that’s what the doctor said.”

Ruki sighed. It didn’t sound as bad as he had expected. He wouldn’t be able to jog around the block for a while, but at least he hadn’t gotten his legs broken. That would have been a lot more annoying. Something like that happened two years ago when Kai’s team including Ruki encountered a super violent _onibaba_ in Nagasaki, in which Ruki had gotten his right leg broken, smashed against a tree. Ruki could never forget how arduous it had been going to the bathroom with stiff gypsum wrapped along his leg, and he intended not to experience it ever again if he could help it.

But it didn’t mean that a fractured rib was in any way better. It surely felt like hell, like his ribcage had contracted and forced his lungs to compress inside his chest, which made it a lot harder to breathe. Ruki contemplated buzzing for the doctor himself. A dose of painkiller sounded very tempting at the moment.

“Ruki,” Kai’s voice brought Ruki’s attention back to him. “I’ve already heard a bit from Yuu, but you experienced the attack first hand. Can you tell me about it? Do you remember what happened?”

Ruki frowned. The bits and pieces were all in his head, and he knew he could tell Kai everything that had happened from the moment the attack began, but what happened after that? What was going on when his sight was suddenly filled with red, as if someone was aiming a red spotlight right onto his face? Was it just a normal stage that people went through before they passed out?

In the end, he decided telling Kai everything he knew, whether it was important or not. He started with eating breakfast and washing dishes with Yuu, which he mentioned only briefly. With Yuu standing right next to him, it was difficult to relive the situation again without blushing profusely. His heart was also beating madly inside his chest, which was a torture for him with his injured rib. He quickly got to the point when the invisible hands came out of nowhere, pulled his collar and flung him backward. He remembered the sheer power of the creature that made him feel like he weighed nothing as he flew across the room. He remembered the ‘crack’ that seemed to resound in the entire room when he crashed against the table. And then he remembered the excruciating pain that raged inside his body as he crumpled on the floor.

He told Kai the details of when the creature strangled him, of the merciless grip around his neck that was cutting off his respiration. He also spent some time describing his efforts in fighting back against his attacker. He didn’t understand how his punches and kicks could make impact. Ghosts or apparitions weren’t usually touchable, unless they wanted to be touched. It might be important, he thought, especially with Ayame here. Ruki knew Ayame would need all the smallest details to get her analysis done.

“I couldn’t think clearly,” Ruki said, lying through his teeth. He remembered pretty well what he had been thinking back then, which was mostly about Yuu and how much Ruki actually admired him even until today. It would be irrelevant, not to mention embarrassing, to add that bit into his story. “I tried to grab it, any part of it, to see if I could recognize its form. It felt like a human, but I’m not so sure. I was losing my strength very fast. And the next thing I knew… I was seeing red.”

“About that,” Shou piped in, “Ruki, do you remember how you felt when that happened?”

Ruki frowned. He thought the most crucial thing to do at the moment was to find out what creature had attacked them. “To tell you the truth, I don’t remember much. Does it matter, though?”

The taut look on Kai’s face told Ruki that it mattered more than he thought.

“Ruki, I’m going to ask Yuu to repeat what he has told us before you woke up,” Kai said. He looked so somber Ruki was beginning to feel worried. _What happened when I fainted? Why does everyone look like I’ve done something bad?_ That would be ridiculous; what could an unconscious person do?

However, before Ruki could mutter his confusion out loud, Yuu had begun talking. If the room hadn’t been uncomfortably silent before, it was now.

“It was a violent sight, to say the least,” Yuu started, his voice sounded tired. Ruki wondered if he had got any rest since… _how long has it been since I got attacked, anyways? How long have I been unconscious?_

“You were struggling against this invisible creature,” Yuu continued. For some reason his eyes were staring relentlessly at Ruki. “Your arms and legs were thrashing, and for a while it seemed like you successfully landed a good number of blows against the creature. But it was soon becoming useless. You were getting weaker, I could see that. I wanted to help, I really did, but that creature kept kicking me back every time I got too close. I panicked, and you were… you were…”

Hiroto, who had been standing beside Yuu, patted the actor’s shoulder. “Don’t worry too much about it, Yuu-san, this is not your fault,” he said, trying to soothe the distraught man. Ruki could see his effort was failing, because Yuu still looked very much stressed out.

“Hiroto is right, Yuu,” Kai added. “You had no control over the situation. You couldn’t have, not without the adequate skills. Even if I had been there instead of you, I wouldn’t have known what to do in such a short moment.”

Kai’s words seemed to do the trick, Ruki thought while carefully watching Yuu’s face. Once he looked a little bit calmer, he took a deep breath and continued his story.

“As I was saying, you were getting weaker and weaker by the minute. Soon, your hands and legs stopped moving, and your whole body became completely stiff. I couldn’t tell if you were breathing or not. And then... and then, all of a sudden, you were glowing red.”

Ruki looked at Yuu incredulously. He waited for someone to blurt out the punch line, to tell him that it was a joke, but the room was still as gloomy as it had been since he woke up.

_Me? Glowing red?_

“Every single inch of your body was glowing… red, bright red, like some neon light or something. I froze on the spot, watching you.” Yuu paused for a moment, taking another deep breath as if preparing to say something even more appalling than what he had already told everybody.

Ruki didn’t know what to expect. So he just lied as quietly as he could and hoped that what Yuu was about to say would not be weirder than what he had already heard so far. But it wouldn’t be Ruki’s life if it didn’t have a spark of surprise, and this theory was proven to be true as Yuu resumed with his story.

“I was just about to approach, you know, take my chances and try to reach you somehow. I didn’t know what good that would do, but I couldn’t just stay there and watch you get…” he stopped, seeming to catch himself before saying what he dreaded. “Well, I tried to move, but before I got very far, you opened your eyes. And your eyes were… they were red. Completely red.”

“Weird, man. That is so weird…”

The person who said that sounded like Reita, but Ruki couldn’t be bothered to see if it really was really him or someone else. He tried to focus on Yuu’s words, but his brain refused to believe that the story was about him. It sounded too bizarre, too impossible to be about him. How could he glow red? That’s impossible, unless, somehow, he had gotten infected by some radioactive substance from a source that he was not aware of.

He wanted to kick himself in the face for the sudden random images of Spiderman that popped up in his head.

***

Lunch in the hospital, like most people said, was awful. The rice was soggy, the miso soup tasted bland, and the piece of tuna looked so sad Ruki almost didn’t have the heart to eat it. But he ate everything down to the last grain of rice. Apparently fighting against an invisible creature could really drain his energy.

The doctor, a tired looking middle aged man with grey hair, came to check up on him right after lunch. He was accompanied by a seemingly nervous nurse who nearly plugged off the needle from Ruki’s hand when she tried to change the IV bottle with a new one. She also almost stepped on Hiroto’s foot when she hurried to the doctor’s side. Ruki thought she wouldn’t have been as nervous and clumsy if Yuu hadn’t been in the room. Ruki understood her. He knew exactly how it felt, knew that it would be impossible to act calmly in the presence of a handsome and famous actor like Yuu.

After all, he had been experiencing the same feeling for the past few weeks during his stay in Yuu’s apartment.

But the good news was the doctor told him that he could leave the hospital in three days, which was sooner than he had expected. He would rather not stay longer here, not just because of the unappetizing menu, but also because of the thought that Yuu would be left alone in his apartment. No doubt that Kai could easily assign someone else to guard Yuu instead of him, someone more capable, but after what had happened, Ruki had decided to make this case a little personal. Nobody was going to throw him against a table and walk away unscathed.

It did need a lot of planning, though, and that’s the hardest part. Ruki had no idea what to do. The fact that he was now stranded in this room with a fractured rib was proof enough that he couldn’t fight the creature empty-handed, not to mention without special supernatural ability whatsoever… except to glow red. Which seemed to be useless as far as he could tell from Yuu’s story.

He didn’t know if he should be glad or depressed that everyone had chosen to avoid the topic. He was curious to find out what had happened to him, but then again he was also worried that it might be a bad omen. It’s definitely not a normal reaction. In fact, it was unheard of for a person to glow like a neon light when being attacked by a supernatural creature. But thinking about it was making his head ache, which was a bad addition to his already sore body. He should wait until he was a little healthier and a little less muddled by painkillers to properly contemplate about the whole matter.

“The most important thing is to decide how we are supposed to detect the creature,” Kai said. He was leaning against the wall right next to the window. It looked like it was getting dark outside, but night hadn’t fully descended. Warm splotches of orange stretched across the indigo sky, making Ruki think that it must be around six or seven p.m. at the moment.

“That’s true,” Ayame agreed. “There’s no way we can fight it if we can’t even tell where it is or what it’s planning to do.”

“I couldn’t sense its presence unless it wanted me to sense it—or rather, unless it wanted to beat the crap out of me,” Ruki said, recalling his recent experiences encountering the invisible creature. “Maybe it’s because I lack the power to detect it much sooner, I’m not sure.”

“Or maybe it’s because the creature knows very well how to conceal itself,” Kai shrugged. “There are many possibilities, Ruki, and neither of them means that you’re incompetent. We just need a strategy, an effective one.”

The room was silent for a moment. The remaining people—Shou, Miho and Hiroto had left a little earlier—seemed deep in their own thoughts. Kai walked away from the window, and then sat down the sofa right next to a sleeping Uruha. Their leader looked gloomy. The creases between his eyebrows were deep, and the corners of his mouth were turned down. It was a very unwelcoming sight, as opposed to the usually bright and cheerful Kai that Ruki used to see.

Next was Reita. He was sitting on the chair by the door, seemingly busy with his cellphone. He looked bored, but Ruki could somehow guess that he was also thinking about the case. Otherwise, he would have gone home already, or probably gone to the bike accessory store that he frequented almost every day. Ruki had often underestimated his junior, but Reita had proven almost as often that he was completely reliable. One of these days he would have to give him more credit and a little bit more trust.

And then Ruki’s sight turned to the last person in the room, and immediately felt his cheeks becoming warmer. Yuu was sitting on a chair right next to Reita. The left side of head was leaning against the wall, his eyes were closed. He seemed to be sound asleep, and he had been for the last hour or so. Ruki was confused; didn’t Yuu have a schedule to keep up? A movie shooting to attend? It didn’t make sense that he would rather stay here than go to work like he was supposed to. Ruki couldn’t stop wondering why Yuu hadn’t left, but he hadn’t had the chance to be alone with Yuu to ask him about it.

Ruki yawned before he could stop himself. He covered his mouth with his hand, vaguely wondering when visiting hour would end. It might be the drugs he had taken after lunch, but he felt so sleepy he could fall asleep with his eyes open.

But Kai’s words hung in the room like a heavy fog above their heads. Ruki knew there was a great urgency to sort out what they needed to do. As of now, time was of an essential matter. The longer they spent deciding what to do, the more dangerous it would be for each and every one of them. Ruki could sleep for as long as he wanted after this whole thing was over.

Just when the silence was beginning to feel oppressing, Ayame turned around. She had been standing by the window, staring at the skies outside, not saying a word. Now she was facing the rest of the group in the room. Her face was practically expressionless, like always, and her voice sounded calm when she started talking, almost as if she was talking about the weather.

“We need a bait,” she said. “We need to lure the creature out, and then trap it. It will be easier to fight it, whatever it is, if it is contained inside a safe and controlled area. Shou and Uruha are perfectly capable of creating a strong _kekkai_ which can contain pretty much anything, so we don’t have to worry about that. But we have to make sure the _kekkai_ holds until we are certain that the creature is no longer a threat.”

“What do you plan to do after it’s caught inside the _kekkai_?” Kai asked. Beside him, Uruha was now wide awake, eyes also focused on Ayame.

“That, of course, depends on what creature it is. But I think that once it is bound inside the _kekkai_ , we will know what to do with it.”

“And where do you plan to execute this plan?”

“We know that it always showed up in our client’s apartment, so I see no reason to change locations,” Ayame said. “I’m guessing that this creature can only be in places it is familiar with, like places it has been or seen. The creature is practically obsessed with Yuu, so we have a bigger chance of catching it in his apartment. We have all the space we need to set up a perimeter in Yuu’s living room.”

There was a brief, unsettling silence before Kai asked, “And the bait…?”

Ayame’s gaze fell upon Ruki and at that very instant Ruki knew what she meant by ‘bait’. She wanted someone who could lure the creature out of its hiding. She intended to put someone on the line, taking every risk to draw the creature and drag it into the trap. The fastest way to do that, it seemed, was to make the creature angry. And this was something Ruki had proven to be exceptionally—although unintentionally—good at.

Ruki sighed—a heavy, shaky breath that felt like a big rock trying to make its way through his throat. So it had come to this. He realized with a leaden heart that from now on he was going to face the hardest part of the task. It should make him feel afraid—he could be risking his life if he decided to participate in Ayame’s plan. Instead, he felt anxious, impatient to get this over with. He wanted to make sure whoever or whatever had broken his rib and given him so many bruises would pay for it, and if it meant he would have to gain some more bruises, then so be it.

Ruki was just about to voice out his consent when Yuu suddenly spoke up. He didn’t sound very pleased with Ayame’s idea.

“You can’t be serious!” he bellowed. “It’s too dangerous!”

Ruki hadn’t even been aware that Yuu was awake, moreover listening to their conversation. But now the man was standing straight, his shoulders tense, and there was a hard look on his face that Ruki just couldn’t fathom.

“Can’t you see that he’s been hurt? How can you think of doing something so dangerous while he’s still injured?”

“Yuu, I will certainly not put my staff in a situation which they cannot handle,” Kai said calmly. “We have years of experience behind every action we do, and Ayame as our Analyst is very capable to draw out a suggestion from the most difficult situation. I guarantee that there will be no decision made before we calculate the consequences.”

“Well then you might want to recalculate the consequences one more time,” Yuu insisted. “You guys heard what the doctor said. Ruki needs a lot of rest even after he is out of the hospital.”

Ruki found himself staring at Yuu with a feeling that was part awe, part confusion. He wouldn’t have been so surprised if Yuu had been mildly worried about him—stranger or no stranger, what Yuu had witnessed must have been terrifying. Watching someone being thrown around like a ragdoll by an invisible creature could be traumatizing for some people. But this vivid, unrestrained concern Yuu was showing was almost too much. He seemed ready to argue against whatever Kai was going to say about putting Ruki as bait.

But why? Ruki didn’t understand why he would bother.

Ayame was next to speak up, defending the idea she had suggested. Despite the palpable tension in the room, she still looked and sounded very calm.

“Yuu-san, I understand your concern,” she said. “I have certainly taken Ruki’s current condition into consideration, even before I thought of making him bait in this plan. I know what I’m suggesting is dangerous, but of course I wouldn’t put Ruki into a life-threatening situation, not without thinking about the consequence of every single possible outcome.”

She placed both her hands on the edge of Ruki’s bed, staring straight at Yuu. It always amazed Ruki how convincing she could be when she wanted to, making it impossible for people to underestimate her despite her casual appearance. Well, this must be one of the reasons why she was a highly reliable Analyst, other than her exceptional deduction skill.

“We will have two, maybe three people on guard,” she explained. “I’m thinking Shou, Uruha, and Reita should take that responsibility. First of all, either Shou or Uruha will be responsible for building the kekkai that I was talking about. Second, all of them have the skills. They are fast to react, and most importantly, they can maintain their focus. They will be hiding while Ruki tries to lure the creature out, and once he succeeds, everyone will be there in an instant. Ruki will not be left helpless, not even for a second.”

“But that doesn’t mean—”

“I’ll do it,” Ruki said before Yuu could finish his sentence. He knew that the argument would never end if he didn’t say anything. He still couldn’t figure out the reason behind Yuu’s excessive stubbornness, and despite the fact that it was making him feel slightly happy, he had to keep in mind that Yuu was his client and he was supposed to do what he could to deal with his problem. That was, after all, what he was paid to do.

“I’ll do it,” Ruki repeated with a firmer voice, ignoring Yuu’s splutter of protest. He looked at Ayame with a determination he hadn’t even known he had. “Just tell me what to do. I want to make sure that whoever or whatever did this to me pay for it.”

***

It was approximately an hour and a half after visiting hours were over that everybody—except Kai—had finally gone home. It had taken a couple of nurses threatening to call the security to kick them out of the room to persuade everyone to leave. Ruki heaved a deep breath, leaning back against his pillow. Despite the sleepiness he felt, his mind wouldn’t stop and take a break. The conversation they had a moment ago kept replaying in his head. There could never be enough time to discuss every single detail of the plan that Ayame had suggested, but at least they had covered most of the basics to make sure the plan would run smoothly. Before they ended the discussion, Ayame had insisted that they didn’t mention all the things they had talked about tonight to anyone.

“We need to minimize the risk of blowing up this plan,” she said. “It’s best if we don’t let any outsider except our client know about it.”

She made Yuu promise not to tell the people he was working with, including the makeup team, the staff, even his manager. Knowing that he couldn’t talk to his manager seemed to make Yuu a little upset, but Ayame emphasized once again that it was for his own safety. They still didn’t have a solid clue about their suspect. It would be pathetic if they ruined the only chance they got to succeed just because someone unknowingly told the culprit about it.

“You have to remember that the suspect can be anyone,” she said, “anyone at all.”

She was always mysterious and a tad bit frustrating, Ruki thought. And then she had left with Reita—another mystery, if Ruki could say so himself, because those two had never got along before. She might have another strategy up her sleeves that she hadn’t revealed to anyone, something that required her to talk to Reita. Ruki hoped it was a contingency plan that would make sure he survived this whole ordeal, without anymore broken bone if possible.

“You should get some sleep.”

Kai’s voice dragged Ruki away from his current thoughts. He looked at his senior who was sitting on the chair beside the bed, and soon saw that he wasn’t the only one who needed rest. The dark circle around Kai’s eyes made him look worse than a starving vampire—and Ruki had seen starving vampires, so he wasn’t exactly exaggerating with his opinion.

Ruki shifted slightly, wincing when his side hurt, and then settled in the most acceptable position.

“You don’t have to stay here, you know,” Ruki said. “You look like you can use some sleep too.”

Kai smiled. “That’s what the sofa here is for,” he replied good-naturedly. “And it’s a very comfortable sofa, I might add. Uruha fell asleep as soon as he sat on it.”

 _Uruha can fall asleep practically anywhere_ , Ruki thought idly. But he didn’t say a word to contradict Kai. He knew that if he chose to keep pressing on the matter and force Kai to leave, his boss would only end up spending the entire night worrying about him. It was probably better if he stayed, both of them would have each other’s company, and Ruki didn’t have to worry any invisible creature would try to maim him while he was asleep.

“Or would you prefer Yuu was here instead of me?”

Ruki nearly toppled off the bed. He looked at Kai with wide eyes, spluttering. “Wh—what do you mean?”

“Well, he did seem adamant on keeping a watch over you,” Kai smiled even wider. “Why didn’t you let him stay?”

“He has to go to work,” Ruki answered, struggling to put on a poker face. “He has taken the whole day off today. They have a deadline to catch up so…” He stopped himself before he started babbling. It’s a habit he needed to get rid of.

Not very eloquently, he steered the conversation to a different direction. “Um… do you think Ayame’s plan will work?”

Kai’s smile faded slightly at hearing Ruki’s question. He suddenly looked very tired; lines after lines that had etched themselves on his face became clearer under the light of the room. His right hand ran through his hair, making it a total mess.

“It has to,” he said sternly. “It has to work. Otherwise I’m forced to take drastic measures.”

The way Kai said ‘drastic measures’ made Ruki’s skin crawl with dread. Things would have to be extremely bad and unsalvageable for Kai to take his ‘drastic measures’. Ruki had witnessed such emergencies only twice in the time that he had spent working in PSC, but it was enough to make him not want to go through the same experience again.

“But enough of this talk for now, you are supposed to get all the rest you need,” Kai spoke with a gentler tone. “Now shut your mouth and go to sleep, you hear me?”

Ruki kept his eyes open long enough to see Kai walking toward the sofa and settling himself there. His figure was dark but unexplainably strong, an assuring presence that made Ruki feel somewhat safe. Ruki was unconscious by the next minute, slipping into a restless sleep and a dark, painful dream.

****

\- TO BE CONTINUED -


	15. Chapter 15

Ruki sat with his back against the cushion, eyeing the man in front of him a little warily. He found it odd that, while he was still having second thoughts about the whole plan, Yuu seemed to be perfectly comfortable with the situation. He had a wide smile on his face, and a subtle ease in his movements. And it looked like he had prepared everything, from the food and beverage to the DVD he had picked for them to watch tonight.  
  
Yuu lifted his hand and showed Ruki the cover of the DVD he brought. “I hope you haven’t watched Iron Man 3 yet,” he said, grinning.  
  
As a matter of fact, no, Ruki hadn’t watched that movie. He wasn’t exactly a loyal movie enthusiast, not an avid fan who would be willing to camp overnight just to catch a movie premier either. He usually watched movies from the DVDs he picked at DVD rentals, and his choices were limited to the movies he thought were interesting. He never spent too much time on the internet or reading magazines about movies reviews, so the fastest way to decide was to pick the DVDs that were placed on the ‘Box Office’ rack.  
  
Yuu walked toward his super-big flat screen TV and kneeled in front of it. He put in the DVD into the player, and stood back up. He pointed at the table between himself and Ruki. “Just click play when you’re ready,” he said.  
  
Ruki reached for the remote and did what Yuu told him to do. Soon, the TV screen blinked, and the opening scene of the movie was shown. Yuu approached the sofa where Ruki was sitting, and grabbed the bowl of potato chips from the table before he sat down. What’s left on the table were a couple of mugs, filled with hot chocolate, steaming with white, pleasantly scented vapor.  
  
“Robert Downey, Jr. is one of my favorite actors,” Yuu said as soon as he sat right beside Ruki. He took a handful of chips from the bowl and shoved them into his mouth. His next words came out in a jumble because he was chewing while talking. “You’ve seen the first and second Iron Man, haven’t you?”  
  
Ruki nodded. “I have,” he said. But he didn’t say that if Uruha and Hiroto hadn’t dragged him along, he wouldn’t have bothered going to the movies to watch.  
  
“Cool, huh?” Yuu asked. His eyes were practically twinkling as the movie rolled. “To tell you the truth, I’ve seen this movie during the premier, and once again when I first bought this DVD, but I never get bored of watching it. RDJ—that’s how people abbreviate his name—is a really fascinating person, even in his daily life. I like that he seems snobbish, but he’s actually a great guy.”  
  
Ruki honestly didn’t know anything at all about the main cast of Iron Man, well, no more than what he had accidentally watched on entertainment shows on TV. However, the more Yuu was telling him about the actor, the more compelled he felt to like him. It didn’t seem to matter that he couldn’t even name other movies that RDJ had starred in.  
  
Tony Stark’s dialogue with his mechanical assistant, Jarvis, filled the silence that was left as soon as Yuu stopped talking. Ruki struggled to focus his whole attention at the movie that was playing before his eyes, not at Yuu who was sitting right next to him. He couldn’t help but wonder if the space between Yuu and himself hadn’t shrunk. It felt as if Yuu was plastered to his side, pushing him all the way until he was pressed between Yuu and the armrest on his right side.  
  
 _Calm yourself_ , Ruki scolded himself. He had a job to do, and he needed to keep it cool in order to do it. If he wished to call himself a professional, he had to be able to get rid of the discomfort he felt. Even if it meant forcing himself through every bit of accelerated heartbeat, dripping cold sweat, and awkward moment, he would have to deal with it. He would get along with Yuu tonight, because that’s what the plan required him to do.  
  
But if he was to be honest, he had tons of things he wished he could ask Yuu. However, he couldn’t decide where he should start. It would definitely be weird if he began talking about high school days, especially because deep inside he was still having doubts about revealing the fact that he was Yuu’s junior in high school. What was he going to say if Yuu started asking questions? Not that he had anything to hide. It was actually the complete opposite; he had absolutely nothing to talk about. Before he signed in to PSC, his life was very much uninteresting. Boring. Monotone. He wouldn’t have wanted to listen to a story of his younger self even if someone had asked him to.  
  
And not to mention there was still PSC’s rule that forbade its staff to share their personal information to anyone outside the institute…  
  
So then, as casually as he could manage, Ruki reached out and grabbed some chips from the bowl in Yuu’s hands. He bit into one and popped up a question, “Do you have any other favorite actor beside RDJ?”  
  
Yuu tilted his head; he looked like he was contemplating through an entire list of names in his head—which might not be too farfetched. Soon enough, he answered.  
  
“I have lots, actually,” he said. “If you’re talking about Japanese actors or actresses, I personally like Watanabe Ken, Yakusho Koji. Kikuchi Rinko was also quite amazing when she acted as a mute girl in the movie Babel. As for Western actors, I love de Niro. I also like Brad Pitt, but only when he plays in drama movies. Not that I’m telling you that his acting in actions movies is bad, but his talent truly shines when he’s playing with the emotions on his face, not when he’s punching a guy’s face to a pulp. For example, his role as Benjamin Black…”  
  
Pepper Potts babbling on TV became completely ignored while Ruki turned his attention to Yuu and listened to him talking. He didn’t actually know all those names that Yuu had mentioned, except maybe Brad Pitt, but then who didn’t know Brad Pitt these days? Ruki hardly ever noticed the names of the actors and actresses in the movies he had watched. He didn’t have any obvious reason why he should; he had no interest in them, and he certainly wasn’t going to start idolizing them. A complete opposite of Yuu.  
  
“And you? Do you have any favorite actor or actress?”  
  
Yuu’s question startled Ruki a bit, but he quickly regained some senses and answered. “No,” he said. “No one specific.”  
  
 _Actually, I’m a big fan of yours, but there’s no way I can tell you that, right?_  
  
“Oh,” Yuu nodded. “So you’re not into movies. What’s your hobby, then?”  
  
Hobby. Ruki had to squeeze his brain a little bit to be able to answer that question. “Umm… does sleeping count as a hobby?”  
  
Yuu laughed. His laughter sounded crisp and warm—which made Ruki think of his favorite caramel-glazed donuts that he usually bought at the bakery near his apartment.  
  
“I suppose it does,” Yuu said, “if that’s how you spend your free time. Sleeping.”  
  
But really, that was truly how he spent his free time. Ruki shrugged. “I feel tired every time I come home from work, so all I’ve got time for is to shower and sleep. I do have more time during the weekends, but I don’t really do anything. If I wasn’t spending my time in bed, sleeping, I would be visiting my parents’ place.”  
  
“Where do your parents live?”  
  
Ruki’s heart suddenly beat twice faster.  
  
“Kanagawa,” he answered after a few nerve-racking milliseconds. “I was born in Kanagawa and lived there until I graduated high school. I moved to Tokyo, went to college, graduated, and worked in a private publisher before I finally enrolled to PSC.”  
  
Yuu set his gaze on him, his eyes unreadable. A small smile tugged the edges of his lips. “Kanagawa, huh…” he murmured, nodding his head. There must be something in his mind and Ruki wasn’t sure it was anything good.  
  
On TV, RDJ was dragging his iron armor in the midst of a field. What was he doing? Ruki had no idea what had happened to him or how far the plot of the movie had gone. It didn’t seem to matter at the moment, not anymore. His thoughts had become too muddled, his nerves tensed, knowing that he had somehow gotten himself stuck in the exact situation he had avoided. If Yuu asked what high school he had gone to…  
  
“I used to live in Kanagawa too,” Yuu spoke softly. He turned his eyes—finally—toward the TV, but Ruki didn’t think his gaze was really fixed on RDJ and his iron armor.  
  
“Kanagawa used to be a quiet place,” Yuu said, “at least the area where I lived in. Shopping centers were scarce, but we had many playgrounds. Every day after school, I and my friends liked to hang out at the field right next to the minimarket to play baseball. There were no houses around the field, so we didn’t have to be afraid someone might hit the ball too hard and break a window.  
  
“We did, however, meet some problems whenever my band needed to practice. There were just the three of us—me on guitar; Jiro, the tall and skinny one, on bass; and Takeyama on drums. We never fixed our minds on a vocalist. That sounds sad, but Takeyama was a stubborn guy. You can never believe the qualities he was asking for from a vocalist… The person had to have a voice like X JAPAN’s Toshi, but with a face of a Johnny’s member. Sounds absurd, considering we were doing covers of B’z and Mr. Children’s songs. Luckily we had never faced too much trouble getting a temporary vocalist every time we had to perform.”  
  
A glimpse of a guy with average height, slightly stout body and a face full of acne marks popped up in Ruki’s mind. Takeyama was not exactly a popular kid in school, but when Ruki was a sophomore, he often saw him in front of class 2-A, right next to Ruki’s class. He had heard rumors about Takeyama, a senior, was dating a girl from the swimming club named Hayashi or something like that, and she was in class 2-A.  
  
“What I meant with problems was, basically, finding a place to practice,” Yuu continued with his story. “There was only one studio in the area, and the studio only had one room and limited amount of instruments. Thanks to Jiro’s super-busy schedule in his soccer club, we could only practice during the weekends. Unfortunately, every single band in the entire area seemed to think the same. Everyone needed the studio during the weekends. You can only imagine how frustrating it was, waiting for our turn to use the studio…”  
  
The sound of explosion blared from the TV. Ruki saw people running around, things on fire. How far had the film gone? Ruki could hardly tell who’s who and what was going on anymore.  
  
Ruki thought about the strategy that he and Kai had discussed over and over again, and wondered if this—unintended nostalgia with Yuu—was meant to be included in it. He remembered what Kai had told him repeatedly. “Bonding, that’s the most important matter!” he said. “You need to make it believable to whoever is watching you that Yuu and you are getting along well.” Ayame’s theory stated the creature was aiming to harm everyone who came too close to Yuu, everyone who took up Yuu’s attention, so this would be the most effective way to draw it out of its hiding. But again, it was just a theory. And Ruki was here to prove whether the theory was really accurate or not.  
  
 _Well. It’s easier said than done._ Maybe if Yuu had been a complete stranger, it would have been easier to do this bonding thing Kai had asked him to do.  
  
In the mean time, Yuu still seemed a bit carried away with the story of his past. It didn’t give Ruki much choice other than drifting along with the stream. Memories of his high school days slowly crept into his head, filling his brain with countless images, both wonderful and embarrassing. Yuu’s voice steered him through the myriads of scenes, deeper and deeper into a past he had left behind.  
  
His eyes wandered to Yuu’s face. Yuu looked like he was daydreaming, his eyes were slightly glazed, and he had an easy, carefree expression all over his face. Obviously high school had been a great part of his life.  
  
 _I wish it was that great for me too_ , Ruki thought a bit bitterly. He wished he had done a number of interesting things that he could happily share with someone else.  
  
“Oddly though, we got along so well even though the three of us were so different in terms of personalities,” Yuu said. “The band lasted even until we graduated, although we didn’t get a lot of chances to perform. We never really thought about taking it seriously, and there weren’t too many music events except the ones that the school held.”  
  
Ruki could feel the discomfort growing again inside of him, making him nervous. If only Yuu would change the topic and start talking about something else—anything else that didn’t involve his high school experience or teenage days. Ruki wouldn’t mind if Yuu wanted to go back to talking about his work or about movies. But the longer Yuu talked, the more excited he seemed, and Ruki knew it would be weird if he suddenly offered a different topic to talk about.  
  
“I can never forget my third year at school,” Yuu murmured. “We were asked to participate in the school festival for the second time. We knew it was going to be our last performance in the school festival because we were graduating that year, so we wanted to make it a little bit special. We practiced almost every day, not just during the weekends. If we couldn’t book the studio, then we had to make do in the art room at school or at my house.  
  
“We were pretty lucky to be able to get a sophomore who was willing to sing for us for the event. He was a shy guy, but had an amazing voice. We decided to do four songs, two from B’z, one from Mr. Children, and one from LUNA SEA. We picked the songs that were popular at that time. Jiro and I were backing vocals. The audience was great. Everyone was so excited, and simultaneously that made us even more excited to perform. Even our shy vocalist seemed to find his hidden, inner rockstar spirit.  
  
“Finished with four songs, the audience were clapping and shouting for more. Some girls even threw flowers to the stage. The feeling was so amazing… probably one of the best things I’ve ever felt my entire life. That might be my first experience being a famous person, if I may say so myself.”  
  
Yuu laughed, and Ruki couldn’t stop himself before he laughed along. Just like Yuu said, the memory of that day was unforgettable. Ruki remembered it too. He remembered sitting among the audience, barely blinking from the beginning until the end of Yuu’s performance with his band. Back then he hadn’t even known the songs, hardly ever heard of the bands that originally wrote the songs, but Yuu’s band performed so wonderfully it wasn’t hard for Ruki to enjoy them.  
  
Their laughter gradually slowed down, blending with a dialogue between RDJ and some character Ruki didn’t recognize on TV. He glanced at the screen for a second; clearly their movie night was not going as planned, but looking at the situation, the bonding between them was moving nicely. He didn’t know how he should feel about that, though.  
  
He reached out for the mug on top of the table, the black mug with the ‘ _I ♥ Bali_ ’ on the side that belonged to Yuu, and took a sip of his chocolate drink. It was no longer warm anymore, but tasted nice nonetheless. He sipped some more, letting the sweetness fill his mouth and his throat, and then placed the mug back on the table.  
  
The next moment he turned to Yuu, the man was smiling. It was a soft smile, the kind of smile that hardly left the slightest dent on his cheek, but was made vivid by the light that glowed in his eyes. Talking about high school days like this was clearly making him happy. So Ruki knew he had no other choice but to keep his mouth shut and let him continue.  
  
“We were encouraged by the audience’s reaction, so with the permission of the event’s committee, we performed one more song,” Yuu said. “We let the audience decide what song they wanted us to perform. I did feel kind of nervous. What if they ask us to play a song that we’ve never practiced before? Fortunately, though, when I pointed one of the girls who raised their hands, she asked for a rather familiar song. LUNA SEA’s Crazy About You. The funny thing is, that girl wished to dedicate the song to a teacher. Umm… I can’t remember his name. He was like the meanest teacher we had ever had, and he taught Math in my third year…”  
  
“Modoki-sensei.”  
  
Ruki quickly shut his mouth, but he knew it was already too late.  
  
Yuu’s face was beaming as if someone had lit a neon lamp right in front of him. His eyes were wide open, looking at Ruki unblinkingly.  
  
“I knew it!”

 

***

  
_Well isn’t this unexpected_ , Ruki thought quietly. He had spent so much time worrying about the moment Yuu would find out that he used to be his junior. But now that everything had been revealed, it actually felt ridiculous to worry so much. It was surprising, even, that Yuu looked amused, as if he had guessed it long before Ruki had slipped on mentioning the name of their high school teacher.  
  
“Yes, I kind of did,” Yuu confirmed, grinning. “I’ve been wondering since the day we met at your office. And when you came to do observation here in my apartment, you blurted about me still playing when you saw my guitar. At first I thought you had read it in an interview, but then… I don’t know. I just had this feeling that I had seen you somewhere.”  
  
“You could have mistaken me for somebody else,” Ruki said. He didn’t even know why he was still insisting.  
  
“I could have,” Yuu grinned. “But I didn’t. You probably didn’t know, but I’m still in touch with most of my high school friends. Some of them were my juniors. I contacted one of them, borrowed his yearbook, and, well, I found your photo in it. I’ve got to tell you, you haven’t really changed since then.”  
  
Ruki couldn’t argue anymore. And he didn’t think like he needed to argue or defend himself. He hadn’t told Yuu about his true identity—Yuu had figured most of it himself—so technically speaking he hadn’t broken PSC’s rules. If Kai asked how it had happened, Ruki could tell him that it was all an honest mistake.  
  
 _Yeah right, an honest mistake._  
  
What Ruki dreaded the most was probably the awkwardness that would occur—or at least what he had expected to occur once he was found out by Yuu. But, again, oddly, that’s not what was happening. Half-awed, half-uneasy, he followed along as Yuu delved even deeper in high school nostalgia. If anything, the man seemed even happier to talk about his younger days now that he was sitting with someone who had actually been around back then.  
  
Yuu was reliving each precious moment he had gone through and each memorable person he had met in high school. Starting from the teachers who had taught them, the cafeteria with the awful menus they served, to the kids who got expelled for spreading porno on the internet, Yuu never seemed to get tired of talking. In the mean time, Ruki was nodding his head as if he knew everything and everyone Yuu was talking about. It was baffling and a little bit sad that, even though they went to the same school, Ruki hardly understood half of everything Yuu said. It was like they had come from completely different worlds.  
  
After a few moments, Yuu took a deep breath and finally stopped talking. Quite coincidentally, the movie came to an end as well. Ruki looked at the screen and saw the credit roll, feeling a little bit baffled; he had no idea what had happened throughout the entire movie. He just hoped Yuu wouldn’t be asking about the scenes he had missed.  
  
The ending soundtrack of the movie filled in the silence that was now stretched between Yuu and Ruki. As usual, Ruki’s mind rushed to find something to talk about, but he couldn’t find any appropriate topic. He probably should have commented on something that Yuu had said, something about his high school experience, but then he couldn’t think of anything worth mentioning. Like he pointed before, his high school days were nothing but a sadly boring chapter of his life.  
  
 _There’s no such thing as a comfortable silence_ , Ruki thought. Everything would definitely become awkward between two people when nobody’s saying a word.  
  
Moments seemed to tick very, very slowly, but then finally Yuu sighed. He had the same smile that had been decorating his face all night long, and when Ruki turned his gaze at him he saw that, unlike himself, Yuu wasn’t feeling nervous. If anything, he looked elated, and Ruki didn’t understand why.  
  
Yuu put his left arm on the back of the couch, around Ruki’s shoulder.  
  
 _Why. What._  
  
While Ruki’s brain was sputtering incoherencies, Yuu leaned closer. “It’s nice meeting someone from the past, you know,” he said, his voice was gentle. “I wish you would say something earlier, but I guess you had a reason not to.”  
  
“W-well…” Ruki stuttered, “The institute doesn’t allow us to share our private information with our clients, and, umm…”  
  
“I understand, you really don’t have to explain it to me,” Yuu grinned. “But you’ve got to admit, it is pretty funny that you accidentally exposed yourself because of Modoki-sensei. You know, of all things.”  
  
It was in fact very funny. Ruki let out a weak laughter that soon grew into a louder one, Yuu following right after. The two of them guffawed as if someone had been telling them the funniest joke they had ever heard. Their heads knocked against each other, but for some reason Ruki didn’t feel too bothered about the proximity between them now. Maybe it was the laugh, or maybe some unknown miracle; either way, Ruki was grateful. He didn’t know how long this could last, so he cherished all the chance he had.  
  
The left side of Yuu’s head was pressed against the right side of Ruki’s; Ruki was still giggling breathlessly as the beginning of Yuu’s sentence ghosted against his cheek, “I’m really glad they assigned you to—”  
  
Yuu never got to finish his sentence, because at that very moment the world shook.  
  
Well, not the entire world, only the room. Actually, only the couch where Ruki and Yuu were sitting on.  
  
It felt like an elephant—or a very angry creature—was pushing the couch relentlessly, as if trying to force the two guys sitting on it down to the ground. Ruki stood up, forgetting his still mending injury, and dragged Yuu right behind him as fast as he could away from the couch. He tried to remember the outmost border of the _kekkai_ that Shou and Uruha built, which was between the living room and the kitchen, and dove onto the floor, letting himself roll and crash against the same kitchen table that had broken his bone.  
  
Ruki groaned in pain, but he struggled to open his eyes and check where Yuu was. Relief washed over him when he saw Yuu was close by. It wasn’t until a little while later that he realized—blushing profusely when he did—that Yuu’s hand was on his waist, as if keeping him close and safe.  
  
And now all he could do was pray. Pray so that the plan would succeed, the _kekkai_ would hold, and no one was going to get hurt again.  
  
He watched with wide eyes as the couch they were just sitting on was being pushed violently until it almost toppled over. The creature was clearly very, very angry. It had probably figured out that it had gotten into a trap. That was making him even angrier and more determined to get to Ruki, in the mean time destroying everything in its path. Cushions were shred, glasses were thrown and broken. The leftover of the potato chips that they had been eating earlier were strewn all over the carpet now. Ruki was grateful he got out of the _kekkai_ just in time.  
  
The front door opened with a loud bang. Kai, Shou, Uruha, Ayame and Reita rushed in like an avalanche of people, approaching the spot where Ruki and Yuu were practically sprawled on the floor of the kitchen.  
  
It was Reita who made the first noise. He was standing upright just behind Yuu, finger pointing at the circumference of the _kekkai_. His eyes were wide with surprise.  
  
“So it’s you!!!”

 

  
**\- TO BE CONTINUED -**


	16. Chapter 16

Yuu’s apartment soon turned into a battlefield. Every single furniture and item that had the most unfortunate fate to be inside the _kekkai_ barriers were torn apart and thrown all over the place. The sofa cushions were ripped to shreds, its cotton fillings drifting down in the air like snow drops. The carpet fibers were pulled from the base, jutting out messily. The mugs no longer looked like mugs now, but pieces of glass; its content, the chocolate drink that Ruki had really enjoyed earlier, was spilled on the carpet, making a huge, ugly brown stain. A random, regretful thought occurred in Ruki’s brain, Yuu’s living room would need a massive renovation once this was all over.  
  
Ruki gritted his teeth, taking in a shaky breath when Kai pulled him back. Kai’s hand was pressing on his injured side, but he swallowed his protests and scuttled away from the _kekkai_. Yuu followed right after Kai pulled him back as well. He never took his sight off of the _kekkai_ while he took his position behind Shou, right next to Ruki.  
  
The most frustrating part about this job was that, people with no gift of sight would find it impossible to see the supernatural sightings, unless the creatures channeled enough energy to let humans see their form. But for people who were born with the gift, like Reita, Uruha, and a number of other staff in the Department, the creatures would appear very clearly, although not as solid as human beings. Ruki himself could be considered a commoner with a lack of ability, someone who wouldn’t be able to see supernatural creatures without the help of spells, or unless the creatures allowed him to see them.  
  
So that’s exactly why at the moment, both Ruki and Yuu could only stare curiously into the _kekkai_ , wondering who it was that Reita saw. From the way he reacted, it seemed like the culprit was someone familiar. But who… and how could he or she be invisible to Ruki’s eyes?  
  
Ruki leaned against the cabinet under the sink, watching Kai as his boss left his side to approach Reita.  
  
“Do you have any spell that can reveal his form?” Kai asked Reita, to which Reita responded with a nod.  
  
Not waiting for another cue, Reita reached into the postman bag that hung from his shoulder, and then pulled out what seemed to be an _ofudo_ from a yellow paper with red writings on it. He placed it on the floor, and then mumbled a line of spell. A second later, Ruki could see something appearing inside the _kekkai_. At first it only looked like an unrecognizable white smoke, but as soon as Reita finished his spell, it became a lot clearer.  
  
Ruki gasped, but Yuu was the first to say something. His voice indicated his disbelief and anger.  
  
“Kazuki!?”  
  
It wasn’t difficult to guess how Yuu felt, and Ruki completely understood why Yuu would be so angry. He was having a hard time believing his own sight. Why would the manager, who was usually very friendly and was never complaining in front of them, do all these horrible things? What could be his reason? And the biggest question: how was it possible that he could appear as a ghost if he was still an alive human being?  
  
Ruki stared cautiously at Kazuki’s face and saw seething rage on his expression. Kazuki’s eyes were wide open, and he was glaring viciously at each of PSC team’s members—especially Ruki. His grayish form stood in the middle of the kekkai, his hands tightly curled in fists at his sides. He was no longer throwing stuff around—and it didn’t seem like there was anything left inside the kekkai for him to throw around—but Ruki could still feel the heat of his rage, radiating through the air, drifting through the kekkai barriers that Shou and Uruha had made. Once again Ruki was thankful for the kekkai that kept him safe from Kazuki, otherwise he had no idea what would have happened to him already.  
  
Ayame’s voice broke through the silence that had stretched since Kazuki’s form was made visible. Her face seemed calm, as if she had made her conclusion about the entire case—which, based on Ruki’s experience working with her, might be accurate. It was a wonder how far ahead she could think, Ruki sometimes thought she had a talent for divination that she never told anyone about.  
  
“ _Ikiryō_ ,” said the girl.  
  
“Huh?” Ruki turned to her, confused.  
  
“[ _Ikiryō_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikiry%C5%8D),” Ayame repeated, “is a manifestation of a human spirit that is detached from its physical body. It takes a very enormous supernatural power to be able to separate your spirit from your body without killing yourself, and it takes even more power to cause this level of damage and to injure other people while they are in that spirit form. Moreover, the rituals one must go through to be able to do this kind of thing are so hard, it’s going to need an unimaginably strong mental strength.  
  
“You might not be familiar with the term _ikiryō_ , or maybe you know it by its Western term, which is Astral Projection. But in AP cases, they mostly appear as sightings or visual disturbances. _Ikiryō_ , on the other hand, can perform physical interaction… and this is what makes it very dangerous.”  
  
For a moment Ruki was silent, staring admiringly at Ayame. There seemed to be a gigantic library inside the girl’s head, filled with millions of books and scripts, which became the source of all her ideas and analysis.  
  
“Oh, I see!” Uruha exclaimed. His eyes were wide, and Ruki swore he could almost see a light bulb switching on above his head. “Hiroto said he couldn’t see any suspicious auras in this apartment. I understand now why he couldn’t. He actually did see the culprit’s aura, but it didn’t make him suspicious. He would never have thought that the one haunting this apartment was Yuu’s very own manager.”  
  
“None of us would have thought of it,” Ayame said. “It hadn’t occurred to me either until a few days ago when I was in PSC’s Archive Room, checking out some old files. And then I went to see Reita and his uncle to make sure if my presumption was possible. Luckily, Reita’s uncle has enough information regarding this supernatural phenomenon. _Ikiryō_ is rather unfamiliar in our ears because the institution has only dealt with it five or six times, with the latest case happening thirty years ago.”  
  
“Thirty years ago?” Kai shook his head. “No wonder I’ve never heard of this before.”  
  
All of a sudden there was a muffled scream coming from within the _kekkai_. The conversation between the team members was cut short; Ruki turned to see Kazuki’s spirit sitting on the floor inside the kekkai with a pained expression on his face. The part of the _kekkai_ wall that was close to the spirit was glowing with a purplish blue haze.  
  
Shou shrugged. “Whoops,” he mumbled. “I forgot to tell you that if you touch the kekkai, you’re going to be electrified… regardless if you’re a spirit or a normal human.”  
  
The room went silent; everyone was staring at Shou with sour looks.  
  
Ruki quietly noted in his mind that the next time he had to go on a mission with Shou, he had to make Shou re-read the institute’s rules, especially the ‘prevention of unnecessary violence and injury’ point.

 

  
***

  
It wasn’t easy to follow Kai’s orders—to stay still like his boss had repeatedly told him to. Ruki knew if he forced himself, his injury would just get worse. His chest felt quite terrible right now; it had been throbbing painfully ever since he crashed against the table earlier. But right now, in this situation they were currently facing, his curiosity felt a lot greater than the worry that his ribs might have been fractured even worse and have become tiny little pieces of bones in his body.  
  
He craned his neck as far as possible, struggling to see what was going on. Half of his sight was blocked by Uruha’s tall figure, but what he could see was already making him frown in confusion.  
  
On the floor, Reita was placing a piece of small, black paper in front of him. The paper had nothing written or drawn on it. Ruki thought it was an ofudo, but where’s the spell? Or was the spell invisible because it was written also in black ink?  
  
Before Ruki could ask out loud, Reita turned to Kai.  
  
“If you don’t mind, can you bring the body in here?” he asked, grinning. “If the spirit is separated for too long from the body, he’s going to be dead… I mean seriously dead.”  
  
Hearing what Reita said, Kai and Uruha hurried out of the apartment, undoubtedly heading toward Kazuki’s apartment. Ruki sighed, grateful that Kazuki’s place was only two floors above Yuu’s. If Kazuki had lived somewhere far away, they would have been dealing with a different problem by now. To be honest, Ruki felt angry, a little vengeful even, after everything that Kazuki had done to him. But he knew death wasn’t a game, and he also knew he would never be able to live with the guilt of letting someone die an unnecessary death.  
  
Once was enough, and even though it had been years since then, the memory of it was still haunting his mind until today.  
  
Ruki was thankful that Kai and Uruha didn’t take too long and showed up before his mind wandered back to that horrible experience. Propped between Kai and Uruha was Kazuki’s body; his feet were dragged across the floor, making a disturbing sight. Yuu’s manager looked like he was dead—well, actually, if you give it a second thought, technically he was dead. His spirit was separated from the body, which made the body lifeless without the ‘motor’ that moved it. Medically, the body was dead.  
  
A shiver ran through Ruki’s spine as he watched Kai and Uruha place Kazuki’s limp body on the floor by Reita’s side. Ruki tried to see if Kazuki’s chest was moving as a sign that he was still breathing—and it was, thankfully, although it didn’t mean that his body was functioning normally. _It’s probably like being brain-dead_ , Ruki thought. The brain cells would be dying slowly until the body stopped functioning completely. Ruki was not an expert in medical field, but even so, he knew that a human body did not have a very long time to survive when the brain no longer worked.  
  
What happened next was a little difficult for Ruki to understand, so he sat quietly and watched Reita in action. And what Reita did first was to pull out a cutter from his bag. Ruki gasped, staring with wide eyes when Reita pulled Kazuki’s hand to him.  
  
“Sorry, dude, but this is for the good of others,” Reita mumbled before he dug into Kazuki’s palm with the cutter. It didn’t seem like a very deep cut, not that Ruki could see anyway, but the sight of the blood running down Kazuki’s skin still made him feel queasy.  
  
The next thing that Reita did was to dip the tip of his forefinger into the small puddle of blood in Kazuki’s palm. And then, with his blood stained finger, he scribbled a short spell on the black paper that he had taken out previously. Nothing seemed visible, at first. The paper remained as black as it had been, just like Ruki had thought earlier that it would be difficult to write on top of a black paper. But then Reita whispered a line of words—a spell—and the black paper began to radiate with a red glow, as red as Kazuki’s blood.  
  
“Can anyone explain to me what’s going on right now?” Yuu, who had been quite for a while, suddenly asked aloud. When Ruki looked at him, his face looked confused, distraught, and slightly afraid. It was quite obvious that he wasn’t performing an act at the moment.  
  
“This is a spirit-binding spell,” Ayame said. She was standing right behind Reita; the expression on her face was calm, as if she was watching a boring TV show instead of a dangerous, life-threatening supernatural ritual. “This spell is usually used to tie down an evil spirit to an object—a non-living object, that is. Shinto priests are very familiar with this method. They usually do it to restrain or to completely eliminate a supernatural creature’s powers by locking the creature inside of a medium.”  
  
“Just like… what do you call that bridal doll marriage ritual?”  
  
“Yes, you’re right, although it is for a different purpose. It’s called [_Hanayome Ningyou_](http://people.brandeis.edu/%7Eeschatt/ImmortalWishes/ningyo.html), in which they use dolls as the medium.  The spirits are drawn from the nature, sometimes a kami. In the ritual, a priest binds the spirit inside a doll, and then he performs the symbolic marriage rituals between the spirit and the soul of the deceased family member.”  
  
Shou interrupted, “I might not very familiar with Shinto rituals, but I’ve never heard of binding a spirit to a living human being… well, uh, technically living, I mean.” He glanced over at Kazuki’s body, as if making sure that there were still signs of him being alive.  
  
This time it was Reita who spoke up. Apparently he had finished reciting his spell. “You shouldn’t do it to humans,” he said. “The risk of doing that is very big, especially if you have no idea what you’re doing. If something goes wrong, you might get an evil spirit dragged into the body that you’re using as a medium. In the cases where you use a non-living object, you can easily solve the problem by destroying the object. But if you’re handling a human body…”  
  
Reita didn’t finish his sentence, but it wasn’t difficult for Ruki to imagine what he meant by it. He swallowed hard, could feel his muscles tensing. He quietly prayed to whatever deities were hovering around them at the moment, hoping that the night would end in a good way.  
  
In the mean time, Reita stopped talking for a moment to rummage in his bag once again and pulled out a few inches of red yarn. He reached for Kazuki’s hand, the one with the bleeding palm, and then he tied the yarn around the hand.  
  
“So, basically, you’ve never done this before?” Kai asked.  
  
Reita looked up and then shook his head. “No, never,” he said. “This is all based on the theories that my uncle explained to me, plus the estimations that Ayame compiled from similar rituals.”  
  
“Ah…”  
  
Ruki could see the color draining from Kai’s face, but his senior said nothing else. It wasn’t difficult to imagine what he had in his mind. The possibility of their plan crumbling to pieces was hanging above their heads, like a dark, heavy raincloud that would usually mean an upcoming storm.  
  
He knew that the only thing he could do right now was pray… pray hard.  
  
“Okay, here goes nothing…” Reita said while tying the ends of the yard on Kazuki’s wrist. “Shou, if you would please open the _kekkai_.”  
  
Ruki’s heart nearly stopped beating when Reita said that, and when the _kekkai_ disappeared, his first reflex was to jump as far away as he could. Kazuki’s spirit made a move to attack the group of people, but before it could reach them, a soft red light glowed from Kazuki’s hand. And then, like dust getting sucked into a vacuum cleaner, Kazuki’s spirit flew and drowned into the body.  
  
The next second, Kazuki’s body was thrashing as if he was having a seizure. It seemed to take every ounce of strength that Kai and Uruha had just to hold Kazuki down. In a completely different situation, Ruki would have laughed watching Uruha sitting on Kazuki’s stomach, struggling to keep him still. However, thinking about the situation, all Ruki felt was fear and apprehension. Shou, who had just finished dismantling his _kekkai_ , almost became a victim of Kazuki’s wildly kicking legs. Thankfully, he had time to take a step back.  
  
 _Lucky Yuu has a big apartment_ , Ruki thought. And lucky that the walls were thick enough so that the neighbors couldn’t hear what they were doing inside.  
  
When all of a sudden Kazuki stopped thrashing, there was a thick, sickening silence blanketing all of them. For a second Ruki thought fearfully that the ritual had taken a victim, because when he looked at Kazuki, the man didn’t seem to be breathing. Uruha shuffled off of his position in a hurry; he also looked worried, probably thinking he had accidentally suffocated Kazuki to death. But thankfully, Kazuki’s chest began to move rhythmically up and down, and the sound of his breath could be heard.  
  
A few minutes passed, and all of a sudden Yuu spoke up. “Uh… do I need to find myself a new manager?”

 

  
***

  
It was 4 a.m. and Ruki was wondering whether the pain that seemed to be coming from every part of his body would ever ease up on him. He had thought that he would fall asleep the instant he hit the bed, but so far he was still wide awake. He was tired as hell, but his mind refused to let him sleep. His brain insisted to keep replaying the scenes from everything that had happened today, starting from the morning he had just woken up to the moment Kai and everyone else left Yuu’s apartment.  
  
The silence in the apartment felt so out of place after all the commotion they had gone through. It was like someone had turned off the radio and pulled down the blinds, and all of a sudden Ruki was transported into a completely different world.  
  
The pillow under his head felt uncomfortable, so he shifted from his position a little. He promptly hissed. The side of his chest that was injured—twice, actually—throbbed excruciatingly, sending sparks of pain to his other body parts.  
  
“Hey, are you okay?!”  
  
Ruki felt the bed underneath him creak as Yuu approached him. He tried not to feel so self-conscious about his current condition (he must have looked totally messy and badly bruised), and swallowed his growing nervousness down. His chest was already painful enough without his heart hammering against his ribs from within.  
  
“I’m good,” Ruki answered. He probably needed to pay the doctor a visit in the morning, and most likely he would be required to spend some more days in the hospital, but at the moment he didn’t want to think about that. “Just a little sore. Are you okay yourself?”  
  
Yuu nodded. “I’m fine. I wasn’t the one who got thrown against a table,” he said good-humoredly. “But I have been wondering about what Kai told you…”  
  
The heavy tone with which Yuu spoke reminded Ruki of the phone call from Kai that ended not an hour ago. Kai’s team had arrived at the hospital, and they had had Kazuki checked in. Kai said there was no worrying diagnosis; the doctor said Kazuki had just fainted from over-exhaustion. An overnight monitor was needed, but Kai confirmed that there would be no permanent injury, and that he would be free to leave the hospital in the morning.  
  
However, that’s not what Yuu meant.  
  
At the end of the conversation that Ruki had with Kai earlier, Kai had told him that there would be several possibilities that they could do about the situation. Sure, the ritual was successful and Kazuki’s soul was already tied to his body, but the ritual did not eliminate Kazuki’s ability. There was still the possibility that once Kazuki woke up and was fully aware of what had happened, he could find some way to free his spirit and practice his extraordinary talent again.  
  
There were some solutions to this predicament, Kai had informed him. The first was to destroy Kazuki’s powers. A long and complicated ritual was needed to do that, and the one to perform this ritual had to be a highly skilled person, someone with an extensive amount of experience. The consequences would be horrible if the ritual failed—in some cases it even took human lives. Second option would probably be safer, but no less complicated. They could talk to Kazuki and persuade him to stay away from Yuu, or at least to convince him that he shouldn’t think of a second attempt of what he had failed to do. Even before they gave this option a try, Ruki knew it would never work. If anything, they would just be fueling Kazuki’s grudge.  
  
And then, there was the third and, if Ruki may say so himself, a little bit controversial option. Controversial, because it required manipulating someone’s mind. The one who had brought up the idea, as expected, was Ayame. She believed that the safest way to solve this problem was hypnosis. It wouldn’t be anything drastic, she said. They didn’t need to erase all of his memories—that would only create new problems—but only some parts that reminded him of his ability and his feelings for Yuu. Ruki personally thought that this was a breach of human rights, but when Ayame asked him if he had other possible way out, he couldn’t say anything.  
  
“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” Ayame said. “Plus, if you think about it, we’re only helping him in becoming more professional. He can’t be a good manager if he can’t separate his personal problems from his work.”  
  
Ruki couldn’t deny the truth in Ayame’s opinion. Furthermore, it seemed like the safest possible solution compared to the other options. Providing the person they got to do the process was qualified, everyone, including Kazuki, would walk out of this whole ordeal with a smile on their faces.  
  
“Convince me again that I took the right decision,” Yuu said. “I don’t want to wake up tomorrow morning thinking I have ruined someone’s life permanently.”  
  
Ruki took a careful look at Yuu. The man looked genuinely worried. Ruki couldn’t blame him; despite everything awful that Kazuki had done to him, he had been a great manager and an arguably good friend.  
  
“No, you’re not ruining anyone’s life, Yuu,” Ruki told him. “I’ve already told you, we are not going to completely erase his memories. We won’t be changing who he really is. In a way, we are improving him as a person… I mean, think about it, without his obsession of you, he would make an excellent manager. And you wouldn’t have to be worried anymore about what bad thing he could possibly do to you.” And then, almost as an afterthought, he added, “Well, unless you don’t want him to forget…”  
  
Yuu shook his head, well, as much as he could do while lying down against the pillows. “I do want the best solution there is, and I can understand that the other options are just too risky to take,” he said. “I was just thinking… Will there be any side effects? Will his memories resurface one day? I might be worrying too much, but I can’t help it.”  
  
Ruki could feel the two sides inside his brain arguing against one another. The first, his professional side, agreed wholeheartedly with Ayame’s suggestion. This side insisted that the sooner they worked on the solution, the better. He could go home and finally find some peace of mind. He missed his quiet apartment, his celebrity-free life, his ghoul-free bathtub. But then there was a different side of him that was insistently making him feel reluctant to end this case too soon. It was telling him that he would be sorry to leave this place. Who could tell that he would get a second chance of meeting Yuu? It already felt like a dream now; it seemed like, if he walked out of this, everything would just vanish into thin air. None of this would feel like a real memory, and the thought of that depressed him.  
  
But, then again, who was he to expect so much out of this? He had known from the start that Yuu was just a client. He had been prepared to accept the fact that he would remain unknown until the job’s done. However, Yuu had remembered him, and nothing else in this world could have been more shocking than that.  
  
He really couldn’t help but feel a little bit hopeful.  
  
He should talk to Yuu… Or maybe he should just get some sleep.  
  
It was probably just a couple more hours to sunrise. He had been up all day long, got smashed against a bunch of furniture, and faced one of the most extravagant supernatural rituals he had ever witnessed throughout his life as an employee in PSC. His body was battered and bruised, and his mind was probably not working as well as it should. Maybe, if he could get some shuteye, he would wake up a few hours later feeling more refreshed and—hopefully—much saner.  
  
Tomorrow morning, all of this would be like a dream, and in time, everything would cease to exist. This would just be another case in one of his folders, and Yuu would just be one of the names in his list of former clients.  
  
Something inside his chest throbbed with pain, and he knew it wasn’t his injured rib.  
  
Just when Ruki started to drift off to an unknown dreamland, Yuu’s voice roused him awake again.  
  
“Hey, when this is all over, do you want to hang out with me again sometimes?” he spoke softly. “Well, that is if your institute doesn’t have anything against an employee hanging around with an ex client…”  
  
Ruki turned his head to the side, gaping like a fish.  
  
“And—and if you don’t mind,” Yuu hurriedly added. “I mean… It’s really nice meeting you. You’ve been such a great company in my otherwise deserted—and uh, kind of haunted—apartment. And it’s a pleasant surprise that you came from the same hometown and high school. If I could have a chance to catch up… that would be really great.”  
  
Ruki didn’t know how long he was gaping at Yuu, but it must have become a little bit awkward because Yuu began to look sheepish.  
  
“Sorry, that must have sounded so weird, like I was asking you out on a date or something…”  
  
“No, no!” Ruki sat up—a little too quickly, and regretted it instantly, because his side throbbed angrily. He ignored the pain and propped himself against the head of the bed. “It’s not weird! And I don’t mind, really. Actually I would be… I would be delighted to hang out with you.”  
  
Deep inside Ruki’s chest, his heart was beating madly. Yuu smiled; looking at him, Ruki believed it wouldn’t have even mattered if he had gotten a heart attack. And regarding the rules of the institute, he thought, to hell with them. He knew he would regret it for the rest of his life if he dared to reject this chance.  
  
When Ruki leaned back down onto his pillow, he could almost hear Kai speaking to him.  
  
“Don’t be so uptight,” he would have said with a hint of laughter in his voice. “It’s funny that I’m telling you this, you know, me being your superior. But you have always been the prudish one, the one who is constantly worried about the rules. You should lighten up—forget the rules for a moment, call up some friends, have some fun. The living needs more of your time than the dead. Remember that.”  
  
The grayish light of dawn oozed through the curtains, signaling the coming of a new day. Ruki closed his eyes, letting the gravity of his fatigue pull him down into a long-awaited sleep. His mind blurred into one single thought.  
  
 _It's maybe safe to say now that case is closed._

 

  
** \- THE END - **

**Author's Note:**

> This series was also posted in my LiveJournal.


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